The Blind and the Unseeing
by Stunning Sunset
Summary: When two jutsu clash, Sakura, injured badly, is sent careening through time to the past. Blind, she has to survive alone in the form of a child. Until she helps a man. And then her peace is destroyed and he won't leave her alone.Rated M just in case.
1. Prelude

Well, I'm just trying something new. This will be ItaSaku, but slow going. I intend to take my time with this fic and I'll update it whenever I have time, so updates won't be regular like with my other time travel fic. Well, here comes the prelude. Enjoy!

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The sky was grey with smoke, air was spare and hard to breathe in, so thick was the smoke. The smoke, the smoke, the smoke, that damned smoke. The smoke that rose from the burning houses, the burning forest, the burning bodies, the ashes that now covered the land. The smoke that was causing her coughing as she choked on the blood that rose in her throat, expelled by her heaving lungs that were slowly drowning on the viscous liquid that should have meant her life, not her death.

She felt the same red blood roll down her cheeks over the already dry and cracked tear marks from her empty eye sockets. Was it a blessing or a curse that she could not see the end of her world, of all she had ever fought for?

"SAKURA-CHAAAAAAAN!"

The grip on her throat tightened a bit more and she wondered whether she would be strangled before she could drown on her own blood.

"Give it up, Uzumaki, or the next thing to go will be her tongue, and how good is a kunoichi if she can't see AND utter any jutsu?"

Once more, she shook her head negatively, ushering her best friend to attack with her weakening voice. She would not let him choose her over the world–or what remained of it, anyway.

"Attack, Naruto! Don't you dare keep me from giving my life for my village!"

Tears streaking his face, Naruto, panting, looked sadly at his best friend as she lay dangling in Madara's grip, body bloody and broken. Next to him, Shikamaru nodded imperceptibly, prompting him to rush at his enemy, rasengan flaring in his right hand. The man noticed at the last moment that Sakura had glued herself to him with chakra and extended a hand in the direction of Shikamaru's shadow. At the moment that her shadow connected with Shikamaru's, the eldest Uchiha's body froze in place, making him a prime target, but it was too late for Naruto to change course. Already, his hand was burrowing into Sakura's torso, cutting through it like it was butter, and he had to force himself not to close his eyes as he saw blood bubble from the pink-haired girl's lips as she gasped for air that would never come.

Madara crashed to the ground; Naruto caught Sakura's body in his arms, bile rising in his throat as he noticed that the bloody hand that was keeping her upright was stained crimson with her blood. Hands trembling, he carefully put her on the ground, crying openly.

"C'm'on, Sakura-chan! Heal yourself! You won't die from this, I missed your heart and lungs!"

A shaky smile appeared on the girl's face.

"You did good, Naruto…" she whispered.

"Wait, wait, why aren't you healing yourself?" asked the blond desperately.

"Not enough chakra…it's futile…"

Naruto shook his head with an intensity that could only come from desperation.

"You can't die…Not you, Sakura-chan!"

"Sorry…Looks like I'll leave you alone too…" murmured the pinkette.

Hinata stepped next to them silently; Naruto turned watery eyes to her.

"Can you save her, Hinata-chan?"

The Hyuuga bit her lip.

"No medic can regrow body parts, Naruto-kun," she said gently. "There's a hole in Sakura-san's torso…But…I helped Sakura-san practice a new medical technique…Maybe it can save her…"

"Whatever it is, do it! Save Sakura-chan!"

Alarmed, Sakura weakly tried to fend her off.

"Iie…Don't do it! You've never done it yourself! And it's never been tested on humans!"

She had to stop talking as a bout of coughing came over her; above her, Naruto looked pleadingly at Hinata.

"Sakura-san…If I don't try, you will die…please consent to it…for Naruto-kun's sake."

Sakura shook her head vehemently.

"If you botch it, you could die too! I won't take that risk!" she argued with increasing weakness.

"But I will," said the Hyuuga firmly. "I have observed you carefully, I'm confident that I can do it. Believe in me."

As she performed the jutsu and her hands glowed green, Naruto and Shikamaru remained silent, only erupting into talk when Hinata wiped her brow with the back of her hand and averted her gaze as Sakura began to shrink in front of their eyes. The pink-haired girl trashed on the ground, screaming her head off. In front of Naruto's horrified eyes, blood began to seep out of the young woman's pores, covering her entire body in a viscous sheet of crimson.

"Hey, hey!" cried Naruto, sensing his anxiety steadily climbing higher and higher, "Is that normal?"

Hinata nodded, forcing her eyes to stay glued onto Sakura's body to monitor the jutsu's progression. With a quick snap of her wrists, the blood began to head for the hole in Sakura's torso.

"Wait, won't she dry up without blood or something?" asked Naruto, chewing his lip.

"Iie, but…"

Surprisingly perceptive when it came to Sakura, Naruto looked at the Hyuuga with narrowed eyes, then looked at his best friend still on the ground and his eyes widened to the size of plates.

"She's…shrinking?"

"Hai…In every cell of our bodies, there lies the information about every inch of us, so I'm agglomerating her blood and flesh in her torso. The jutsu will then transform the cells into the necessary organs and repair her body, but that will cause her to shrink in size. Ah, but don't worry! She will grow older once again. We just have to wait, then I'll be able to do it again to heal her eyes…"

However, before the medical jutsu finished its work, a form rose from the ground some way away from them and attacked them, red eyes blazing. The three ninja jumped out of the way, only realizing afterward that they had left Sakura behind in their haste to get away.

Madara looked at Sakura's healing body, then turned his head in the direction of the Hyuuga. If she had managed to heal the pinkette, she would heal him too, even if he had to force her to do it. A sadistic smile appeared on his face. He may be weak at present, but that wouldn't stop him. Nothing would ever manage to stop him.

He prepared his sharingan and tensed, poised to run at Hinata. His feet left the ground for a fraction of a second before he was yanked down to the earth. Surprised, he turned his sharingan on the young woman who had grasped his pants in a vise-like grip, her other hand cradling her stomach in pain with a determined look on her face. Sneering, he unleashed his time-warping sharingan on her to get away from her grip.

He had not counted on it reacting with the medical jutsu she was under.

The two jutsu clashed together and exploded in a bright flash of light that forced everyone to avert their eyes or go blind momentarily. Madara had the sense of mind to jump as far away from it, luckily for him: the explosion left nothing behind.

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Thanks for reading! Next chapter: Sakura is in the past! Tell me what you think!


	2. First Meeting

I'm back! I'm on a roll, people. Gosh, I'm great. Alright, enough of me, on to the reading!

By the way, did you notice that I don't own Naruto?

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Sakura groaned in pain and sat up slowly. She gingerly touched her stomach, relieved to find new skin, but well aware that she would still be tender for a while. What had happened? She could no longer smell any acrid smoke, nor feel any chakra around her. Either everyone was dead or they'd left during the time she had blacked out. Frowning, she touched her wrists for any chakra suppressor bracelet, but didn't find any. No handcuffs, no chakra suppressors. She must not be a hostage.

Wind blew softly against her face, bringing with it forest sounds of all kinds. If she strained her ears, she could hear animals carefully prowling in the underbrush, birds singing, leaves rustling…Her left hand rested on a bed of dry leaves. She clearly remembered that the battlefield had been far from any forest, so where was she?

Frowning, she then had the niggling suspicion that what she was feeling wasn't real. However, once she tried to dispel the genjutsu, the sensations didn't disappear. Her anxiousness didn't, either.

_Where_ was she?

She drew a hand to her eyes, healing the nerves and vessels as much as she could with the small amount of chakra she had left. She sighed, knowing that she would never see again. The technique Hinata had performed could only be done once on a person. It was too straining on the body. She had not had the heart to tell Hinata that all the experiments she had tried it on twice had died. Unless she tried transplants, she would be forever blind.

Once she had soothed her empty eye sockets, she got up and looked through her weapons pouch. She only had a handful of kunai, shuriken and exploding tags, but it would do. It would have to.

The first thing she did was use her ninja wire to set up a few traps to catch animals and enemies alike. She would need food to replenish her energy and her chakra. Then she would be able to heal her broken bones.

Once that was done, she set out to find a source of water. She ran into trees a few times on the way and stumbled just as much, even stubbing her big toe on a rock, but she finally managed to find a river not too far from her initial spot. Thankfully, the water was just short of warm, and very soothing. She quickly washed the blood and grime off her skin and put back on her too-big clothes.

Next on her list was shelter. For the first few days, she remained close to where she had first woken up, but as the days wore on and her wounds healed, no sign came from her friends, and she finally decided to walk up the river. Sooner or later, she would encounter a village along the way, and whenever they came by, her friends would be able to pick up her trail.

-:-

Weeks later found Sakura living alone in a cave hidden behind a waterfall, less than two hours away from a small village. She dressed solely in animal skins, using whatever money she made from healing the villagers and selling them medicine she made with the herbs she could find in the forest to buy whatever she needed for her practice. The only piece of cloth she did buy was a blindfold that she kept on her eyes at all times, for the villagers tended to be horrified by her empty sockets, and she had no intention of being stared at each time she went down to the village.

And so went on her life until an unexpected visitor came by.

-:-

There was nothing worse than getting hurt on a solo mission without any medical supplies left, thought Uchiha Fugaku. It had been so long since he had gone out of the village on a mission that he must have underestimated his opponent. Well, no matter. The man was dead, but he had left him a rather annoying gift. He was not used to getting injured, and thus had only limited knowledge of medicine. And now it came to bite him in the ass. He didn't know a thing about healing broken ribs and curing poisoning. He would stop by the next village and see the local doctor for temporary relief so he could last until he went back to Konoha.

The first village he went by didn't have any doctor or even something remotely similar. However, the villagers told him that the next village had a doctor who visited once in a while. If he was lucky, he would catch the doctor during one of those visits. If he wasn't, the villagers would at least be able to tell him how to find the doctor.

By experience, Fugaku knew that old women were always informed best. They were meddling and gossiping, and nothing could go on unnoticed by their radar, especially in such small and close-knit communities. Thus, as he entered the village, he headed straight for an old woman weaving baskets in front of a small house.

"Tell me, obaa-san, is there a doctor in this village?"

The small woman scrutinized him with perceptive eyes.

"Who's asking?"

He could understand her distrust; in such small towns, strangers were never seen as anything else but trouble. Especially ninja. And Kami knew that his very attire positively screamed shinobi.

"Don't worry, I only want some medical help, then I'll be on my way. I won't deprive you of your doctor."

The shrewd old woman looked at him for a long moment, and despite himself, he had the strange impression that she could read right through him. And then she smiled a cheeky smile with an uncanny glint in her eyes.

"Well, our doctor's a strange one, that's for sure. You still want to see her?"

How strange was that doctor, anyway? And he didn't have any prejudices against women. Some of the best ninja he knew were women, and damn were they good at their job.

"Hai, I do. Where is she?"

"Follow the river upstream. She lives in a cave under the waterfall. You can access it by a ledge on the left side. There's a small outcrop, you can't miss it. She's good. Very good. Don't get influenced by her appearance."

Wondering how much of a weirdo the woman may be, Fugaku nodded and thanked the old woman, but she merely waved him off with a "Don't worry about it, son. Changes from the usual, anyway. Now off you go."

Somewhat bemused, Fugaku followed the old woman's instructions and ended up in front of the waterfall, almost afraid of what he was going to find. He entered the cave with trepidation, only to stop short at the sight, eyes widening in amazement. Rows upon rows of bottles covered the walls on manmade stone shelves, herbs of all sorts covered a table on one side, and a pile of furs was placed on the stone ground a short ways away, making a sort of bed, he supposed. However, he did not see anybody, so he went further in, going past the table and the bed, and walked through a corridor to a smaller cave that took his breath away. Phosphorescent moss covered the walls, illuminating the cave with a soft green glow. A small source of water came from one side of the cave into a small basin in a little stream and disappeared at the base of the opposite wall. Three round stones outcropped in a row from the middle of the basin and on one of these rocks sat a pink-haired child back to him.

"A ninja. It has been a while since I had the visit of one," said the child, turning her head in his direction.

Without his ninja training, Fugaku would have done more than just gape at the sight. He stood frozen to the spot as the child lightly hopped down from the stone onto the cave floor and bent down to gather furs to cloth herself with them. She then put a blindfold on those horribly empty eyes sockets and asked him calmly, "What are you here for?"

"I have broken ribs and I've been poisoned. I've been told you're good. Can you heal me?"

"Hai, it won't be any trouble. Come with me."

The young girl expertly lead him back to the main cave and motioned for him to sit down on one of the two stone stools next to the table. She expertly healed his ribs in record time, then poured water from a jug in a bowl and came back to his side with the bowl and another empty one that she set on the table. He watched, mesmerized, as she placed a hand over the water and it formed into a ball, then proceed to push said ball into his chest, providing him with mild discomfort.

"What are you doing?" asked the Uchiha, fascinated.

"Don't worry, I'm drawing the poison out now," replied the child.

She drew a ball from his chest, but this time the water was full of a purplish liquid.

"Is that the poison?"

"Hmmhm," she murmured. "Just show to say all pretty things are dangerous."

She repeated the process a few times, until the water came out clean. She then told him that he was ready to go.

"Alright, how much do I owe you?" asked Fugaku, putting his shirt back on.

To his surprise, she waved him off, stating that she had everything she needed.

"I've got food, shelter, and clothing. That's quite enough for me. But it's nice to have some company. Would you care to share my supper?"

It did not take him long to calculate how much time it would cost him, and he quickly came to the conclusion that he could afford to eat with her without it delaying his appointed arrival time in Konoha.

"Alright. But aren't you afraid of a shinobi, especially alone and defenseless?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say defenseless. I can take care of myself, let me assure you," replied Sakura confidently.

"If you are half as good with self-defense as you are at medicine, I don't doubt that. Nevertheless, you are so very small, you're but a child, probably no older than my own son!"

Sakura snorted and motioned for him to follow her outside, surprising him once again when she hauled a deer over her shoulder as though it was nothing. She impaled it and put it over a fire pit to roast, then sat down with a sigh of contentment.

"A _deer_?" asked Fugaku, shocked to the core by the display.

"Oh, would you prefer fish? I'm quite good at fishing them out with my bare hands. I have no fishing rod, anyway."

"Iie, it's alright, meat is fine."

Sakura nodded happily and began to peel a daikon with a kunai of all things, twirling it expertly in her hands. Once again, Fugaku found himself wondering who she was. How did she know so much about medicine and why did she know how to handle kunai and above all, _what_ had happened to her eyes?

And so he blurted out, "_Who_ are you?"

With a mysterious smile, the pink-haired child answered cheerfully, "Why, I'm but a lowly child, but you may call me Sakura."

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Sooooo? Was it worth reading? I tried my hand at a more approachable Fugaku. You'll see more of him in the future, and I'm thinking of having Jiraiya make an appearance, maybe as a father to Sakura. What would you say to her agreeing to pose as his illegitimate child? I can foresee so many funny events happening with the two of them…Anyway, review, or I won't bother writing this story and will instead focus of some of my other fics in the works.

And before you comment on it, Sakura, as a medic, has to heal whoever comes to her, and for the moment, she's neutral. At least until further notice.


	3. Under the Radar no More

Long after the ninja was gone, Sakura remained sitting next to the fire, wondering when her friends would come and get her. That ninja had been nice, though, and she had had fun healing him. As a medic, she was bound to her oath to heal whoever came to her, and not only had the man never threatened her, he had been fun company, too.

Ah, well, no matter. She would probably never see him again, especially since she didn't even know his name. At least he was cautious enough not to reveal his identity to a stranger. Well, that was to be expected. He sounded like a mature man, and he had a child about the age she seemed to be, after all.

Sighing, Sakura went back to her cave, curled into a ball on the pile of furs, and slept till morning.

-:-

Fugaku returned to Konoha without any inconveniences. He immediately returned to the compound to write his report and was met with the sight of his wife drinking tea. At his appearance, she got up and walked to him, then put her hands on his shoulders and lightly kissed him on the lips.

"You look fine, Danna. Did the mission go well?" she asked, eyes roving over his body in search of injuries.

"It did. I was hurt, but I found a doctor on the way who healed me."

Immediately, his wife's face grew alarmed and she forcibly dragged him out of the house.

"You have to go to the hospital to get checked, maybe you're still hurt!"

He tried in vain to appease her fears; Mikoto was too worried to listen to him. He finally let himself be dragged off to the hospital, knowing only a medic would be able to convince her.

-:-

"There is nothing wrong with you, Uchiha-sama," confirmed the middle-aged medic he consulted. "In fact, if you hadn't told me that you had broken your ribs and gotten poisoned, I would never have believed it. There isn't any sign of a fracture on your ribs, nor any remnants of poison in your blood. It's as though it never happened. I'd give anything to meet such a skilled doctor."

Fugaku smiled a rare smile and told him, "You'd be surprised. She's quite…unique."

He didn't expand on that comment in front of the medic, but he expected to be grilled about it later, and he was.

"So?" asked Mikoto once the door to their home had closed. "Who was that woman? Seems she left a deep impression on you, ne?"

"She did," he agreed with a small smile.

"Kami-sama, it's been an eternity since I've seen you smile like that! Was she that amazing?" asked Mikoto, gasping in shock.

"Oh, she was. I've never met someone like her before."

Mikoto crossed her arms, eyes narrowing, and snapped coldly, "Talk."

Figuring he had toyed enough with his wife, Fugaku regained his seriousness. It was in these moments that he was reminded acutely that his wife had been and still was a dangerous kunoichi, no matter how homely she seemed.

"She was a child, no older than our Itachi. And I suspect she had ninja training at some point, probably until she became blind."

"Oh, the poor thing!" gasped Mikoto, maternal instincts blazing at the thought of a poor, blind child covered in rags and living on the streets, selling her skills to buy enough bread to last another day. "But if she's that good, couldn't she heal her own eyes?"

The words distinctly made Fugaku uncomfortable and he averted his eyes from her as he said, "She can't heal them because she doesn't have any. I saw her before she put a blindfold on, and I…" He took a deep breath to fortify himself. "I don't think I'll ever forget the sight of those empty eye sockets."

Mikoto hugged him, knowing he would never allow himself to do it and show any weakness, so ingrained was it in him to hide his feelings.

"It shook you bad, Danna," she murmured.

"Hai," he acquiesced in a whisper, putting his arms around her shoulders. "I don't know how she could sound so…serene after that happening to her. And she was so unselfish! I didn't once tell her my name, yet she healed me perfectly without asking for any payment other than some company during her meal. I…I'm not used to genuine, whole people."

Mikoto found herself thinking, as she hugged her husband, that she wanted to see that girl. She wanted to see the girl who had made such an impression on her usually impassive husband. But until she could see her, she could at least give the girl her thanks for healing her husband.

-:-

Sakura wandered into the village with a bag full of vials over her shoulder, wearing a dress made of deer skin to look a bit less like a hermit. As usual, she found the old woman sitting in front of her house weaving baskets.

"Baa-san, I'll be gone for a few days. I'm going into town to sell my vials. If anybody needs me, tell them I'll be back in three days at the most, alright?"

The old woman nodded and offered to have her grandson accompany her on her errand.

"I don't want to cause trouble…" murmured Sakura bashfully. "I'm sure I can get there without trouble."

"Nonsense," retorted the old woman. "He'd be glad to accompany you and it'll take you much less time if he's there to guide you. Nobutada!" she barked. "Come here! Sakura-sensei is going into town and you're accompanying her!"

There was some movement in the house and the door opened, revealing a young, sturdy man in his early twenties.

"Hai, baa-chan. Shall we go, sensei?"

And so, the two of them were soon on their way, chatting amicably.

-:-

"Well, we're here," said Nobutada as they approached the bustling town. "What now?"

"We look for the apothecary."

Fortunately, after a few inquiries at the market, a helpful merchant told them the way to the apothecary and they found themselves in a dainty little shop at the back of a dark alley. There were ingredients and vials covering every inch available and so many things cluttered in the corners that Nobutada had trouble maneuvering through the store with the bag and even more trouble steering Sakura through it.

"Hello? Somebody?"

From the farthest confines of the store, an old skeletal man appeared, looking as though a breath of wind could knock him over.

"What do you want?" he wheezed, blinking hard in Nobutada's direction.

"Ah, eto…Sensei has some medicine to sell you," explained the young man.

"Well, let's look at it, then," said the strange old man, eyes glittering in interest.

He watched carefully as Nobutada put the bag on the ground and began to pull out vials, settling them on a nearby table that he swept off impatiently. The old man then took each vial carefully in slightly trembling hands, turned it with his spidery fingers, then set them aside with some kind of sacred respect.

"Good, good," he muttered, satisfied. "This is all very good. Tell your master that I'm very pleased and that if he wants to sell me more, I'll happily buy anything he sends me."

With that said, he pulled out a large money pouch from his kimono and threw it on a stool next to Nobutada, then he began to collect the vials with an upbeat hum.

"Eh, but…"

"Let's go, Nobutada-kun," ordered Sakura, pocketing the money. She swiftly made her way out, somehow managing not to bump into anything; the young man ran out behind her, still speechless.

"Why didn't you tell him you were the one who had made the medicine, sensei?" he asked immediately once the door had shut behind him.

Without stopping in her tracks, the child answered that he would have been distrusting of a child, yet alone a blind one, and would never have given her the medicine's worth.

"It would have been all too easy for him to try to swindle his way out of paying me, but you are strong, so he didn't dare try. I'm quite happy you came. I would have had to sell my medicine at the market otherwise, and lost much profit. Thanks, Nobutada-kun."

"Ah…That's nothing, sensei. But what are you going to do with that money? You don't seem to buy much material goods, not even food, except for some vegetables and rice from time to time."

Sakura smiled softly, but with more enthusiasm that he had ever seen in her.

"Now we get to spend all that money on supplies."

Baffled, Nobutada could only ask, stopping short in his tracks, "Supplies? What kind of supplies?"

And right before his eyes, the sweet girl he knew turned into a predator, posture changing suddenly. Her smile became feral as she turned to him and purred, "The ninja kind."

And then he wondered how he could have never noticed how silently she always walked, how precise her movements were, and more than that, how he could have never noticed the unusual aloof aura she exuded at all times. She always was polite and smiling, but who truly knew what she really thought?

Somehow, the nice doctor didn't seem so nice and friendly anymore. And coming from a child, that was more than just a little disturbing.

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Alright, time for a lexicon!

Kami: God

-sama: suffix used to indicate respect

-san: suffix used generally, similar to Mrs. or Mr.

-kun: suffix used after a boy's name to indicate closeness

-chan: suffix used after a girl's name to indicate closeness

Daikon: a big, white and cone-shaped raddish

Danna: a way to address one's husband

Baa-chan: an informal way of saying grandmother

Sensei: a term used to address doctors and teachers

Iie: no

Hai: yes

Eto: word used to express uncertainty, much like "err" in English

More to come in the next chapter! Who's up for some Mikoto&Sakura interaction?


	4. Not the Future Anymore

Well, here comes the time for Sakura to meet Mikoto and realize she's not in the past anymore. And I promise she'll be no wuss.

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By the time they went back to the village, Sakura had managed to buy some kunai, a handful of senbon and two coils of wire, in addition to two crates full of empty vials. With the help of Nobutada's eyes, she had actually bought some good quality stuff. Nobutada had been somewhat uneasy at first when handling the weapons, but afterward, as time went on, he had relaxed somewhat and he had acted somewhat normally on the way back.

"Are you uncomfortable with me?" asked Sakura quietly, subdued.

"What?"

"Now that you know more about me," she explained a bit detachedly.

Nobutada scratched his cheek with a finger, clearing his throat embarrassedly.

"Iie, iie, I'm not…I was just…surprised, but you're still the same person as before, right? So…I figured I'd believe in you."

Touched beyond words, Sakura hugged his arm and whispered heartfelt thanks.

-:-

Even before she approached her cave, Sakura could sense something was wrong. There were four chakra signatures in her little abode. And they didn't feel like those of her friends, either. She was irritated that they had barged in unannounced, but the rational part of her mind said that they could not really have done otherwise. Except maybe camp in the forest. Like they would have done if they'd had any manners.

Pretty much pissed off, she entered the cave, put her supplies down, and snapped irritably, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw your asses out of here."

The voice that answered her was younger than she expected, and sounded hesitant.

"Are you Sakura-sensei?"

"Tell me you're mortally wounded," she demanded angrily through gritted teeth, body tense with irritation.

_Kami, I don't want to deal with this right now._

"We came here on a mission. Are you Sakura-sensei?"

Tension coursed through her body as she flexed her knees slightly, knowing that if she stomped her foot down with chakra, she could bury the four ninja under a few tons of rock.

"Please tell me you're not here to assassinate me. I'm not really anxious to kill people the moment I step foot into my home," she spat dryly.

"So you _are_ Sakura-sensei."

"Iie, I'm a potted plant. 'Course I'm Sakura. Didn't the hair clue you in? Geez, ninja nowadays…"

She would have rolled her eyes if she could have, but she settled for taking out a kunai from seemingly nowhere, twirling it expertly, and picked at her nails with it. Sitting down where she was, she motioned at her unexpected visitors impatiently.

"Talk."

One of the ninja stood up from his place at the table and pressed a packet in her hands.

"And what's this?" inquired Sakura with a raised eyebrow.

"We were sent to give you this, sensei. It's a kimono, and tabi and geta to go with it," explained the team leader.

"A _kimono_?" asked Sakura, wondering who the hell would send her a kimono, yet alone spend their money on buying a whole team to get it to her. "You came all this way for a _kimono_?"

"Not solely," replied the same man. "Our client asked us to give you the kimono and, if you agree, to escort you to her."

"And who is your client?" drawled the pink-haired child, crossing her arms over her chest. Her fingers began to drum against her arms impatiently.

"A man who came to see you some days ago for help. A shinobi. You accepted only his company as payment. She's his wife, Uchiha Mikoto."

Sakura's head went blank.

-:-

The team leader jumped a foot in the air as the child suddenly slammed her kunai deep in her thigh.

"Ah, still there aren't you?" she asked somewhat detachedly, and he had trouble discerning whether or not she was talking to him. "And your client is still Uchiha Mikoto?"

"H–aaai?"

Kami, that sounded almost like a question. He frowned at how pathetic he sounded. If it got out, he would never live it down.

However, the strange child didn't seem any happier. He had thought that being invited to see the matriarch of the famous Uchiha clan would bring more enthusiasm to a no-name hermit.

"Kusoooo…" cursed the child softly, taking her head into her hands. She began to shake it gently, and then laughed _a bit_ crazily. "_That_ I didn't expect."

He cleared his throat loudly.

"Does that mean you won't come?"

And once again, the pink–why that horrid color? – hair shook, and the smile she pasted on her face seemed strained if genuine.

"Iie, I…I'll come. Eto…When is she expecting me?"

"Ah, we don't have to leave immediately, if that's what you were wondering. But…maybe you should take care of your wound first…"

She actually looked surprised, as though she had completely forgotten about the weapon in her thigh, and nonchalantly pulled it out, then proceeded to heal it. The whole process didn't take more than a few seconds.

_So she really _is _a doctor…_

"Ah, Uchiha-sama wants you to wear the kimono, so please get changed, sensei."

She nodded and took the parcel from beside her, then began to walk to the bathing room. He, in turn, quickly signaled for the only female on his team to follow her.

"Hey, my name's Tanabata Kazuki. Let me help you get changed."

-:-

"They've been sighted at the gates. I'm so impatient to see her! When is she coming? What's taking them so long? Do I look alright?" fretted Mikoto, pulling on her kimono nervously, trying her best to look dignified, but it was hard to do as she kept wringing her hands. And the numerous Uchiha who went by never ceased to give her strange and curious looks, which did not help her frazzled state any.

Fugaku sighed and grabbed her wrist, stopping her stressed movements.

"You look perfect, but what does this have to look with anything? She can't even _see_ you! Just be yourself, alright?"

"Oooh, there they are!" exclaimed Mikoto excitedly, clearly disregarding everything he had just said. "Look, look! Oooh, isn't she just precious? Look how sweet she is, dressed in that kimono! She looks just like a doll!"

Fugaku silently thanked the gods that he didn't have any daughters.

The pastel-haired child had just entered the compound, accompanied by the team his wife had sent. She was dressed in a midnight blue kimono with silver butterflies dancing from the hem upwards, sprinkling beads of light behind them. The obi itself was just a shade lighter and looked like the surface of a dark expanse of water at night, illuminated only by the moonlight, giving it silvery tones. In contrast, Sakura's skin seemed that much paler. She looked so very frail, using the bent arm of one of the team members' arm to guide her, while another hand was outstretched in front of her to warn her of what lay ahead of her. It wasn't necessary in the compound as, unused to people outside of their clan wandering the streets, the Uchiha populace gave her a wide berth or stepped aside to let her go by them without inconvenient. She got more than a few curious looks, for the embers of his clans all had hair in different shades of black; her own pink one clashed brightly among the sea of black, like a beacon of light in the darkness.

Leaving his wife to swoon over the "utter cuteness of that delectable child", Fugaku walked a few steps toward said child and bowed to her. Just because she could not see him didn't mean he could not be polite.

"Sensei. Thank you for honoring my wife's wishes."

Sakura returned his bow properly, replying, "Not at all, it is an honor to come here."

He placed his hand between her shoulder blades to guide her for the last few steps to his house after thanking the genin team for fetching her.

"So you really _are_ an Uchiha, huh…" murmured Sakura.

"Did it surprise you?" asked Fugaku.

"Surprise isn't quite the right word," continued the child in the same tone. She was spared from talking further as Mikoto kneeled before her and engulfed her in a hug.

"Thank you for saving my husband's life, little darling! Come, come! Make yourself at home!" said Mikoto fervently, releasing the stiff child.

"Eto…Uchiha-sama…I didn't really save his life. I'm sure he would have been able to get back to Konoha to get treated without a problem. However, I am grateful that he came to me first. It provided me with an interesting evening."

Fugaku steered Sakura to the dining room and helped her to sit down at the table while Mikoto bustled around in the kitchen to prepare some tea for their guest. The young girl sat down on one of the cushions properly, looking very prim and proper but feeling anything but. She supposed it had yet to sink into her mind that she was in her former crush's home with said former crush's dead parents. Who weren't so dead anymore.

-:-

The most prominent couple of the Uchiha family wandered the streets together as they rarely did, actually looking at peace instead of haughty and distant. The reason for that sudden change walked right between them, topped with a mop of pink hair. As much as people stared at the famous couple, they stared even more at the child who accompanied them. For one, they had never seen the blind girl, and they all wondered the same thing: how had she managed to approach the most unapproachable couple in all of Konoha.

"Are you sure you don't want anything?" asked Mikoto as they exited yet another store with empty hands. It seemed that no matter where they went, nothing interested the child particularly. It wasn't even that she seemed uneasy to spend their money. She just didn't want anything in particular, or so it seemed.

"I'm fine, Uchiha-sama, I assure you. I don't need anything."

"Nonsense!" objected Mikoto. "Don't be shy! It'll be my pleasure to treat you."

It had been so long since she had had some semblance of normalcy, with people going shopping with her, yet something pierced Sakura's chest painfully. These were not _her_ people.

She turned to the Uchiha matriarch and smiled sadly.

"What I really want cannot be bought, Uchiha-sama. Yet alone obtained."

The two Uchiha stopped walking at the utterly serious words, but, sensing the oppressive atmosphere she had created, Sakura skipped ahead of them, turned around, and put her hands in her back, rolling on her heels.

"Ah, that was a joke. Did you take it seriously? Come on, let's just enjoy the day, shall we?" she asked sweetly with an enthusiastic smile.

Knowing she could not see them, the two Uchiha looked at each other with serious eyes. She had _definitely_ not lied back there, no matter how much she lied to keep them from feeling bad about it. What was it that she wanted desperately that was so unobtainable?

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So, satisfied? Just a precision, though. Sakura is gonna be somewhat angsty for a while–who wouldn't be–and she won't be all-powerful or anything. She will be strong, but this ain't some "Sakura-is-a-strong-chick-with-godlike-powers-who-went-back-in-time-to-kick-ass" fic. Ne? ^^

Oh, and review. I'm not updating until I have at least ten reviews.


	5. The Brothers

Geez, I'm so sorry! I promised I would update soon, but I had so much studying to do! I swear, writing this, I was always calculating how much time it cost me. It was awful. Damn deadlines. Anyway, you don't want to hear about that. I've had a few questions, so pay attention, it may keep you from asking the same ones: First, Sakura looks like an eight year-old girl, while Sasuke is four. Also, while I want reviews to know what you think, what isn't clear, what you want me to improve, etc. I absolutely will never stop writing just because you don't review. But I have to admit that I am more enthusiastic when I get some, and it encourages me to write both faster and better, so you may want to keep that in mind. Hope this chapter pleases you!

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Sakura bit into her peach, feeling the sweet juice flow in her mouth. She chewed slowly, gulped, and sighed happily, leaning back against the trunk of the sakura tree she was sitting in. The sun was warm against her face, bringing her some measure of inner peace that came so rarely to ninja. With a small smile, she took another bite of her peach.

"Whoah…Are you a fairy?" asked a childish voice from below her.

Unbidden, a giggle escaped her lips at the thought.

"What makes you think that?" she asked, smiling wider.

"Well, you're in our sakura tree, and you have pink hair, and I've never seen anyone with pink hair before. So? Are you?" continued the eager voice.

"Iie, sorry. I'm Sakura, but I'm just another human. And you? Who are you?"

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke!"

She gripped the branch she was sitting on with steely fingers; her knuckles became white before she let go of the branch and hopped down, forcing her face into a natural friendly appearance. She was getting better at pretending to be alright, she noted mentally. Seems like her bullshitting level had just gone up. Joy.

"So then, if you aren't a tree spirit, what are you doing in our backyard?" asked Sasuke.

"I'm a guest of your parents'. I'm waiting for them to return from their meeting with the clan elders."

"Aww. And I was so sure that you were a tree spirit. But if you were a tree spirit, you wouldn't be able to go far from your tree. And wouldn't that be mighty sad? I mean, you couldn't see the world!" He stopped talking suddenly, eyes going wide as saucers at his blunder. "Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to–I mean, sorry, I…I was insensitive, wasn't I?"

Her façade cracked a little, but she tried her hardest to hide from him how much it hurt not being able to see anymore. Nothing could hurt more than having had something and then have that something being wrenched away from you. Not ever having that special something would have been less painful.

"Don't worry about it," she said reassuringly. "Tell you what. You become a ninja and see the world for me, alright? And you better tell me all about the places you see!"

"Deal!" cried Sasuke enthusiastically. "I'm gonna be the bestest ninja around, just you wait!"

"Haha, is that so?" asked Sakura warmly. "Then you better keep your promise!"

"I will! I swear on my honor as an Uchiha!"

The solemn promise sounded so cute, coming from the 4 year-old, that she felt her fingers itching to pull him close to her and hug him to death. She didn't remember him being such a sweet child, but then again, she had been rather fangirlish at that time and he naturally had been cold to her when he wasn't running from cohorts of fangirls. It was sad, really, that she had known him so poorly, while here he was, befriending a total stranger. Somehow, she felt that her entire childhood was pathetic rather than bright like she remembered it to be.

-:-

Fugaku and Mikoto came back to their house feeling emotionally drained. Meeting the elders was never fun, at the best of times it was a strenuous experience, and you always had to decipher what they really meant, but this time, it seemed even longer and tiresome than usual because they had been so happy and peaceful before going to the meeting.

As they entered their house, no one greeted them, which struck them as odd, for Sakura should have been there and Sasuke should have been back by then, yet no sound came from the house. As Sakura had expressed an interest in the backyard, they headed there first, figuring maybe she hadn't heard them come in. The shoji door slid slowly with barely any noise, and then they saw their backyard, and more specifically, they saw Sakura and their second son sleeping softly, sitting with their back to their sakura tree. Sasuke did not move, but Sakura seemed to awaken at the soft sound of the door sliding. Her head turned in their direction as they stepped into the backyard, but she made no movement, clearly not wanting to wake up the younger boy next to her.

"We're back," said Mikoto softly. "Did Sasuke-chan trouble you?"

"Iie," replied the pastel-haired child just as softly. "He's a good child. At first, he thought I was a fairy. He was pretty disappointed when I told him I was just a human."

Next to her, Sasuke stirred, prompting her to shut up in order not to wake him up. A few seconds later, however, the boy groaned and twisted a bit; his eyelids fluttered, revealing hazy black eyes.

"Kaa-san! Nee-chan told me the most amazing story about fairies! It was amazing! See, there was a tree fairy, and a human, and they went on a journey together, and…"

Mikoto chuckled warmly as her enthusiastic son recounted the story excitedly and lead him inside the house, leaving her husband to help Sakura.

-:-

Itachi looked at the gates of Konoha with a mix of happiness and trepidation. His return to his home village was always a source of mixed feelings. He did love his village, but he was not looking forward to seeing his manipulative family again. Pretending to be less good than he was would not have been an option, no matter how many migraines it would have saved him. However, the prospect of feeling once again like a lab rat did not enthuse him in the slightest.

Thus, he was very surprised when he entered his family home and felt no heavy atmosphere. He almost whipped out his kunai, but his mind caught up with his body, and he stopped his movement before he embarrassed himself. After all, he could clearly sense his family's chakra in the house. In fact, his mother came out of the kitchen to meet him with a large smile moments later; however, his baby brother, usually so cuddly with him, was nowhere in sight. That alone surprised him. It was dusk, so Sasuke should have been there, running to him and hugging him half to death, yet there was no trace of him.

"Okaa-san…Where is otouto?"

"He's out at the moment, but he should be back soon," answered his mother without a trace of worry in her voice, face, or body language.

"He is always back by this time," pointed out Itachi, intrigued. It was not like his younger brother to lose track of the time. Nor the day he was supposed to come back from his mission.

"Hmmhm. But don't worry. Your otouto is being a real gentleman to our guest. He took her for a tour around Konoha."

For once, Itachi blurted out what he thought instead of analyzing every word that would come out of his mouth.

"A _female_ guest?"

When had his brother begun to be interested by the fairer sex? As far as he knew, Sasuke was popular because of his good looks and family, but still ran away from his fans, so how had he become interested in her? Or better yet, how had _she_ managed to entice him? He wanted to meet that girl.

Mikoto refrained from chuckling at the look of wonder and curiosity she had never seen on his face. He looked totally baffled.

"Why, yes, a girl. A rather charming one at that. I'm sure you would like her. She's a bit like you, really: a lot more intelligent than she seems. And don't worry, she's not after our family name or our wealth. In fact, she didn't even know we were Uchiha until we told her."

Itachi couldn't keep himself from snorting.

"Somehow, I highly doubt that."

His mother smiled that annoying secretive smile of hers and didn't bother to contradict him. She merely hummed with a strange glint in her eyes and suggested that he bring them home, as dinner would be ready soon.

Itachi nodded, bowed slightly to his father as he came out of his study, and set out to look for his baby brother.

He tried every place Sasuke frequented, going from his favorite one to the least probable. Eventually, an Uchiha told him she had seen Sasuke head for the Memorial Stone with a pink-haired girl. As far as he knew, the only girl Sasuke's age was a kid named Haruno Sakura, and she was not particularly astounding except for her book smarts, and she certainly was not any less fangirlish as the other girls her age. So how had his brother become interested in her when he had cursed her existence the last time he had seen him?

However, when he came to the place, he found himself stopping short and jumping into a tree, right next to a certain Hatake.

"Hatake-san. I'm surprised you aren't at the Memorial Stone."

"Maa," shrugged the silver-haired young man, "There was someone already when I arrived. I don't mind waiting; it gives me a chance to get ahead in my reading," he continued, eyes riveted to his usual orange companion.

Itachi had enough poise not to roll his eyes, but it sure was tempting; had he been a lesser man, he would not have hesitated to do so. Instead, he looked at the Memorial Stone, but was surprised to see only one child. His eyes wandered across the surroundings, looking for the figure of his brother. He was not far, sitting at the base of a tree. Satisfied, he looked back at the Memorial Stone and scrutinized the girl attentively. The more he studied her, the more he came to realize that she was not the girl he expected. For one, she had slightly darker and shorter hair and was older, maybe around his own age. Her whole demeanor and attitude, too, was vastly different. She was not clinging to Sasuke and she was touching the Memorial Stone with something akin to reverence.

As though he had read his mind, Kakashi spoke up in a falsely disinterested voice.

"Interesting, ne? She's been tracing the kanji of the names of the lost ninja for a while now. I wonder which name she's looking for."

Itachi continued to observe the strange ritual silently; the girl soon stood up from where she was kneeling and walked in the general direction of his brother, arms outstretched in front of her. Sasuke walked quickly to her and took her hands, then steered her gently out of the grounds and back to the Uchiha district.

Back in his tree, Itachi leaned against the trunk and closed his eyes. In his mind, the black blindfold contrasted sharply against the pink tresses, as though the picture had been seared on his retina.

"Ne, shouldn't you be going too?" drawled Kakashi, flipping yet another page of his book.

He didn't answer, but a moment later, only the older ANBU member was left on the branch. Kakashi shook his head ruefully and returned to his book. He had to finish that fascinating chapter before he went to speak to Obito.

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Next time, more Itachi goodness! Look forward to it! How will an intrigued genius act?

Otouto: little brother (not like you didn't know that already, but…)


	6. Of Beasts, Green or Otherwise

After what feels like the worst week of my life, I finally managed to stumble to my computer and type this little baby. Hope you're satisfied with it. By the way, I've been asked again what age Sakura looks like. Once and for all, **she looks eight**_**. **_Also, do any of you know when Sasuke and Itachi's birthday are and when Itachi graduated to chuunin, jounin, and ANBU? It would be helpful. Lastly, before I send you off, thanks for your feedback on young Sasuke. I tried to make him into a relatively innocent and happy child, and to make him lovable, which I apparently managed to do. Thanks, guys. I really hate him, so he was hard to write. Also, in this chapter, you'll see he's not only a happy-go-lucky child…hehehe.

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Dun dun dun, you've just won an extra awkward session with the Uchiha! Great. Perfect. Peachy. Can I get away, _far_ away from here, like, _now_? Such were the thoughts that ran through Sakura's mind as she sat at the dining table, wishing desperately she could disappear.

"Don't steal her from me, aniki," muttered Sasuke, glowering at Itachi over the dining table.

The older Uchiha looked at the pouting child stoically and took a bite of his misokatsu, polite upbringing shining through his action.

"Calm down, foolish otouto. I'm not stealing anything or anyone from you," he said, making sure to pronounce every syllable clearly as though that would hammer the message even more into Sasuke's head.

Sasuke grumbled, stealing a glance at Sakura, who was sitting next to him and trying her best to eat primly–even though it had been a while since she had lost her sight, finding her mouth without seeing her hands was harder than one would have thought–but the girl kept on eating silently.

"It's because of you that she wants to leave!" accused Sasuke, his eyes seeming even blacker than usual.

"Sasuke-chan, calm down," admonished Mikoto. "She had to leave at some point, you know?

Sasuke glared at his food, silently wishing it to spontaneously combust. Of course, it did nothing of the sort, which only added to his irritation. He sneaked a peak at Sakura, disgruntled; Mikoto hid a grin behind a façade of distant politeness at the sight, eyes sparkling, and caught the eyes of her husband.

"I know," grouched Sasuke. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it!"

Sakura tried to defuse the situation before Sasuke let his temper get the better of him. She knew he had a possessive side to him that could get dangerous if let loose.

"I'll come back to see you, Sasuke-chan. Or better yet, you come and see me once you've become a fine ninja," she offered.

Immediately, the young boy regained his sunny countenance and chirped an enthusiastic "Hai!" with a bright smile.

"There's no big reason, Sasuke-chan," continued Sakura, knowing that despite the surprise and unease she had first felt at Itachi's presence, it had faded somewhat as she reminded herself that he was not yet a mass-murderer. "You know, you have many doctors in this village to heal you if you get sick, but in my village, I'm the only one. I can't stay away too long. The closest doctor, otherwise, is a day's walk away, and that's not really practical, ne?"

"I s'ppose not," admitted Sasuke begrudgingly. "You…really will come back?" he asked with a small voice, twiddling his chopsticks.

"If I'm invited, sure."

Surprisingly, this time, it was Fugaku who spoke up with a calmness that she hadn't expected. As though it was evident, his deep voice rumbled, "We'll send someone to get you."

Sakura froze, and even Itachi looked at his father with surprise.

"For the meantime," continued Fugaku, unperturbed, "Itachi-kun will escort you back."

"Hai, he will," agreed Mikoto, "but not alone. It wouldn't be proper for a young girl to be alone with a boy, even if that boy is my son. Someone else should accompany them."

Sakura bit her lip to keep from commenting on how wrong that sounded, but kept herself in check. They didn't know she was not as frail as she seemed, after all.

Still, to spend even more money on her…Well, they were Uchiha. Money troubles was probably another concept they knew about but didn't experience. And who would accompany her? If it was someone as loquacious as Itachi, the journey would feel atrociously long.

Ah, well, time would tell.

-:-

It was a bright and sunny day, she could tell. The sun was warm on her face. It made her smile; in the forest, she rarely felt it. Sighing happily, she lost herself in memories of sunny days and spars.

Next to her, Itachi, silent as ever, observed the girl stoically. She was an enigma, a living contradiction. Her hair was a horrible colour, a dreadful pink that should not belong on a person. She would have been an appalling kunoichi. The only way she could have painted herself more as a target would have been to wear some flashy orange overalls.

And then another atrocity appeared.

"Here I am, my youthful companions!" boomed a friendly voice, startling them both out of their musings.

_Him?_ thought Itachi and Sakura in unison.

Maito Gai grinned at them, enthusiastic as usual.

However, for once, Gai's smile faltered as he stared fixedly at the innocuous piece of black cloth that covered the young girl's eyes.

"Ah…I'm Maito Gai," he said with slightly less gusto than usual. "I'm going to be your escort back to your home. Pleased to meet you."

Gai. Such an amazing man. One of the strongest she knew, really, always supportive of everyone, always having a smile to comfort others, always a pillar of strength.

"I assure you, the pleasure is all mine, Maito-san," said Sakura with a smile.

"Just call me Gai, please, sensei. Let's go, shall we? We have a joyous mission ahead of us!"

"Alright, Gai-san," agreed Sakura amicably.

"Can you keep up?" asked Itachi. At least Gai would be fast, if not silent.

"Of course, my youthful friend! I have full confidence in my abilities!" exclaimed the green-clad shinobi, then continued in a slightly lower voice, "Sensei, do you mind if I carry you?"

And so, minutes later, Sakura found herself carried in the arms of one Green Beast of Konoha as he streaked across the forest. She whooped happily at the sensation of wind ruffling her hair, a sensation she had missed ever since she had lost her sight and, consequently, the ability to run freely across the land.

"Faster, Gai-san! Faster!" she exclaimed with childish glee.

Gai complied with a smile, which in turn made the one on Sakura's face grow just a bit more.

"This is great, Gai-san! Amazing!"

"A truly youthful thing, isn't it, sensei?" replied Gai. "The flower of youth truly blooms brightly in you! Running is indeed marvelous! Then we shall go even faster!"

Itachi began to curse his mother for putting him on a mission with the stamina nuts. Mentally, of course. He was a proper Uchiha, after all. So he settled for running faster in front of the stupid duo. Anything to get the mission done sooner.

And then he saw the girl's home. Well, "home" was not really the appropriate word. She lived in a cave. A _cave_! He looked around in slight distaste. He had to admit that it was a lot less drab than it could have been, but it certainly was no palace. His eyes took in everything, noting that besides her medical apparatuses and herbs, nothing of monetary value could be found in the home of one Sakura-sensei.

"Well, at least no animals entered my home," remarked Sakura after a thorough investigation of her belongings. "It's a good thing I didn't leave any food lying around when I left."

Both shinobi watched in quiet amazement as she moved around easily, seamlessly going from her table to her shelves. She suddenly seemed buzzing with energy as she quickly whipped something up for all of them. Luckily, before leaving, she had gathered a full jar of kuri and another one filled with kareii.

"It's not much," she said apologetically, "but if you give me some time, I can catch a few fish and make sashimi."

"Let me do it, sensei!" boomed Gai with a thousand-watts smile that made Itachi wish he was blind too before the spandex-clad man ran out as enthusiastically as ever.

In the cave, Itachi and Sakura remained standing awkwardly, neither knowing what to say.

"Ano…Maybe I have some sudako, shibazuke or takuan left…"

The sentence trailed off awkwardly, to which Itachi answered, even more awkwardly if that was at all possible, "Iie…Kuri and kareii are fine, sensei…"

He was aware that she was sharing her meager wealth with her and, though kuri and kareii were not up to his standards, he had eaten a lot worse during missions and he did have some reservations about taking her food, knowing that she did not have much to begin with.

Fortunately for both of them, Gai soon came back with a few fish and both men then got to watch, sitting at the table, as Sakura gutted, skinned and cut the fish flawlessly in precise movements. It was beautiful to watch; the blade glinted in the moving light of the torches they had lit with every movement she made.

"Dig in," announced the pastel-haired child as she swept the slices of fish onto a rectangular plate. "It's not much, but it's always better than nothing, ne?"

Itachi nodded with a small "hn" that reminded too much of the way Sasuke used to answer every question with that sound when he didn't want to talk; Gai agreed heartily and went on and on about her cooking, which only made her chuckle and shake her head amusedly in response.

Eventually, after supper, during which Gai and Itachi decided to stay for the night before going back to Konoha, both shinobi were lent a pile of furs to use as bedding. Everyone settled for the night in their own corner and the sound of the waterfall was soon the only sound that could be heard over their light snores.

-:-

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Both shinobi woke up with a start, weapons in hand. Their eyes set on the small writhing form amidst her nest of furs, clawing at her eyes and screaming her head off. In her nightmare, she had managed to get her blindfold off, and when Gai flew to her side, hands stopping hers from drawing blood from her face, her empty eye socket turned in his direction, forever unseeing, freezing both males' blood in their veins.

"AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!"

"Sensei! Wake up, sensei! It's just a nightmare, please wake up!" murmured Gai with urgency marring his usually bright voice.

A few shakes later, Sakura came to, hands fisted in Gai's spandex suit, tension coursing through every inch of her body.

"Wha–Who–"she whispered, her empty sockets looking for something they would never see.

"It was just a nightmare, sensei…" murmured Gai soothingly, cradling the child close to him.

"Iie…" murmured Sakura, going limp in his arms as tension left her body, eyelids closing in exhaustion, "That was a living one…a real…life-changing…event…"

Gai didn't have to be a genius like the silent Itachi to understand what she was referring to when he saw the girl's pale and fragile fingers lift to her face. Rage filled him, streaking through his blood heatedly as he lusted for the death of whoever had yanked the lively girl's eyes out of her skull. Next to him, Itachi, feeling the same way, averted his eyes.

The girl began shaking slightly; then the shaking became trembling. Gai cradled her closer to his body and reclined against the furs, hoping that by enclosing her within his arms, it would give her some modicum of peace and control back.

The shaking didn't stop. Exhausted, she fell asleep soon after, but her body continued to tremble in spastic-like bouts. She curled on Gai's chest, looking so fragile and lost, and slept the night away without any more nightmares as Itachi, sitting against a wall near them, observed them as silently as ever. He had activated his sharingan unconsciously at the first yell, as he had been trained to do at the first sign of danger. And now he wished with every fiber of his body that he could erase the sight of her eyeless face distorted in fright and agony from his mind. As his eyes remained trained on the girl's body, he wondered what a nightmare it was to be plunged irrevocably into darkness.

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Anyone notice that I can't seem to write a chapter without adding some angst? … Oh well. It'll get better soon enough. For now, what do you think?

Aniki: older brother

misokatsu: deep-fried pork cutlet dipped in a sauce made from red miso

kuri: chestnut

kareii: dried boiled rice, often used as traveler's food

sashimi: sliced raw fish

Sudako: sliced and pickled octopus

Shibazuke: pickled eggplant

Takuan: pickled Japanese radish


	7. Payments

Wow, your reviews really encouraged me, thank you all! Once more, a somewhat angsty chapter, but hey, no one can heal instantly, eh? But I promise better times are ahead…especially with the new character that appears towards the end…

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Payment: noun. Something that is paid; an amount paid; compensation; recompense

"I'm really so sorry about yesterday," said Sakura apologetically the next morning. "At times, my nightmares become…well, you saw. For normal people, once you open your eyes, the nightmare fades away, but…for me, the darkness never fades, the nightmare never ends…Ah, forget it, guess I must feel a little depressed, don't let me spoil your day."

She smiled at them, though they all knew she was not fooling anyone.

"Well, get on your way," she continued. "If you ever come around this part of the world, drop by, will you?"

"Of course, sensei!" agreed Gai heartily. "A flower as youthful as you shall not be forgotten! If I have a mission around here in the future, I shall stop by! This is a promise! If I do not come, I shall do 200 laps around Konoha on my hands!"

Itachi hnned softly, marveling at the fact that Sakura seemed to be taking Gai's strangeness and enthusiastic nature in stride, a feat even the most accomplished and patient ninja he knew were hard-pressed to accomplish. Without her to entertain the green-clad man, he expected him to be twice as insufferable as usual.

In the end, he managed to pry the emotional man off of the small girl, cringing internally at the rivers of tears that flowed down the cheeks of the fully-grown man and they both disappeared into the forest, leaving behind a single pink-haired child.

-:-

Blood covered the floor and Sakura's hands, looking very out of place on her. Of course, plunging one's hands deep in somebody's chest had a tendency to do that. Fortunately, Sakura was quite used to having ninja come to her in bad shape and had worn an apron to keep blood from staining the clothes Mikoto had bought her.

She refrained from coursing a hand through her hair, knowing that streaking blood through her hair would really not be a good idea. Well, it couldn't be worse than painting war symbols on her face with it, and she already had plenty of spatters across her cheeks anyway.

Her hands glowed green once more as she finished healing the unknown kunoichi's punctured lung. Said kunoichi's eyes fluttered open as she groaned and spat a mouthful of blood on the floor.

"So you really are just as good as they say," she murmured, watching the green glow on the child's hands slowly disappear.

"I try," replied Sakura with a smile, "though I get more female than male patients."

"That's because the guys don't have enough balls to go to a girl, much less a child," snorted the kunoichi with a smirk.

"And yet you do," remarked Sakura, taking a rag to swipe some of the extra blood off of her hands.

"That's 'cause I ain't stupid," drawled the woman. "As long as you're capable, your age doesn't mean shit to me. That and it's kinda rare to find a medic willing to heal you when you ain't in your country. Ain't you afraid that one day, some of us will try to kill you or kidnap you, or even just fight around here and bust shit up?"

The pastel-haired child shook her head gently.

"Iie. I'm capable of defending myself and my place is neutral grounds. They know that they'd better not destroy my home if they want me to heal them."

"True."

The kunoichi sat up, flicking her long hair off her shoulders, and scrutinized the young child.

"Kinda strange that you'd decide to be on neutral grounds with skills like yours. I'd have expected you to work in a hidden village, if not a simple village. Why are you out here all by your lonesome?"

Sakura sighed deeply, shoulders sagging.

"It's…This place…Medicine is all I really have left, really. I like it here. It's calm and peaceful. That's…all I can ask, all things considered…It could be worse, you know?"

She wandered around the room, putting things back in place slowly but efficiently. This was her home, her haven, the one place she had complete control in. Outside, she was…crippled, incomplete, inefficient…Here, in the darkness, was her place. Here, she had a goal, was useful…Her place was not in the light anymore…Never would be again…

In the darkness she would reign.

-:-

"This is strange…"

"This is great, you mean."

"That too."

Sakura let her chakra flow in her ex-patient body's, concentrating on feeling the woman's chakra as it moved in her body to form the technique she was currently teaching the younger girl.

"This is so interesting…"she trailed off in quiet amazement. "Won't you be in trouble for teaching that technique to me, though?"

The older woman shrugged and explained with a smirk, "Well, I ain't really teaching it to you. I'm just letting you figure it out for yourself. Besides, knowing how to form chakra strings will be useful to you if you remain here all alone."

Sakura hummed distractedly, still concentrating on the feeling of chakra coursing beneath her fingers.

"Hmmhm. Thanks for your help, this definitely will be useful. Especially if I have an unconscious patient."

Once again, the kunoichi shrugged and drawled, "Well, y'know, I'd kinda feel bad about not paying you in some way, so…Guess that makes us even."

"Indeed, though I really must insist that if you pass on the word that I'm willing to heal just about anyone, you should also mention that it's free," commented the young doctor.

The kunoichi stretched, adjusted her skirt, and put her midriff shirt back on.

"Still don't get why you'd do it for free, 't's not like you're rich or anything and if you don't ask for any payment, whaddaya get in exchange?"

"Practice, company, simply saving lives…Isn't that enough?"

The older kunoichi scrutinized Sakura with wise eyes.

"I s'ppose…'cept instead of doing it for a village, you do it for anybody and anyone. That's…actually...somewhat great. No one else does that. You go, girl, I'll come back next time I'm puking my guts out or something," she drawled calmly, making the other girl chuckle heartily.

"I'll take you up on that. I'll be sure to buy some tea to bring my hospitality up to par."

"He. You do that, girl," said the kunoichi with a last wave. The sound of her footsteps receded slowly, and Sakura was soon alone once again.

-:-

Jiraiya swaggered his way through the small village, rubbing his hands in satisfaction.

"Beauties, beauties," he sang happily, almost skipping a step or two. He put his hands in his pockets and approached the oldest woman in sight, knowing old hags always knew everything that was going on in a village.

"Hey, baa-san, I've heard there's a cute exotic-looking doctor in this area. Do you know where I can find her?"

The woman, who he now noticed looked older than life itself, scrutinized him for an eternity. So long, in fact, that he almost began sweating nervously.

"Aye…There is one, but why should I tell you? You don't look ill to me. Unless you have gonorrhea or syphilis or something…"

The white-haired pervert felt crimson flare in his cheeks at the implication.

"Of course not!" he huffed. "I know better than to sleep with diseased women."

The wizened woman muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "That was not the point, but…" and rolled her eyes. "Then _why_ are you looking for her?" she asked shrewdly.

"…Are you ever going to tell me?"

"Probably not," said the old woman with a shark-like smile.

Jiraiya sighed and turned away from the old woman. He would ask someone else.

"Wait, wait!"

Strange, that woman suddenly had such a deep voice…

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, prompting him to face the young man who had called to him.

"Sorry, my grandmother can be suspicious of pretty much anybody. You're looking for Sakura-sensei, right?"

Enthusiasm crept back into him.

"Hai. Do you know her?" asked the shinobi with a large smile.

"'Course I do. Everyone does around here. Don't worry, baa-chan does that with everybody who comes here. She wants to protect sensei. I don't know why you want to find her, but if you hurt her, you'll have every last one of her patients looking to make a rug out of your skin. That being said, go to the waterfall upstream, she lives in a cave behind it."

At last, some answers. Jiraiya was almost ready to hug the man; but he was not a woman, so he restrained himself and kept his hands firmly at his sides.

"Thank you!" he exclaimed and took off at a run, once again happily looking forward to meeting the mysterious girl.

And then he was disappointed.

"What do you want?"

She was too small.

"If you don't have any illness, why did you come here?"

Her voice was just a little too high-pitched.

"Kami, not another brain-dead idiot…"

Her sigh was cute, but her sarcasm was much less appreciated.

"Get. Out. _Now_."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Let me get this straight. _You're_ the doctor who's really good and willing to heal any ninja who comes to you?"

The child, even without eyes, looked thoroughly unimpressed.

"Sorry, I can't heal you of your perverseness," she said tartly and went back to her grinding of some medical herb or other.

"…That was harsh."

"But not any less true."

Silence. Silence. Siiiiiiilence…

"And here I was hoping for a cute, big-breasted girl in a nurse's uniform two sizes two small…" he muttered with a glance at the child.

"Sorry I'm not what you expected," snapped the little girl snarkily. "Not everyone can be up to your standard fantasies."

She remained at the table, hands flitting across her knives to find the proper one, finally setting on a small, sturdy one with a sharp blade.

"Ah, well, no matter, I can always find beautiful women elsewhere, ne?" asked Jiraiya in a light tone to defuse the situation.

"I wouldn't know if there are any around here," shrugged Sakura. "I can't see them. Nowadays, I tend to base my impressions on voices more than anything."

"Are you so poor a medic that you can't even heal your own eyes?" asked the older man detachedly, waiting for the little spitfire's reaction.

As expected, she rounded on him, anger making her cheeks flare, but her reply, as she snapped in an arctic voice, surprised him so much he let his guard down and thus found himself catapulted through the waterfall to crash into the forest several yards away due to a stunning blow to his abdomen. He thanked the powers that be that she hadn't used her knife.

"You can't heal what doesn't exist anymore."

Ears ringing, he lay flat on his back in the woods, remembering the look of devastating pain that had briefly come over her features before it had been obliterated with pure rage at his cruel question. Even though he had felt hurt that Tsunade had once more rejected him when he had last met her barely days ago, taking petty revenge on a third party, no matter how much she reminded him of the busty blonde, was inexcusable. He was a gentleman at heart, but that gentlemanly side of him had been totally thrown out the window the moment he had blurted out _The Question_. He palmed his face, closing his eyes in mortification.

_You can't heal what doesn't exist anymore._

Kami, he was a dickhead.

He sat up, groaning partly at his thoughts and partly due to the pain the child had inflicted on him. Was she related to Tsunade or something?

-:-

Sakura folded on herself, wishing to disappear. She hugged herself with her tiny arms and looked down, sitting on the floor back to the entrance of the cave, back to that man she knew yet didn't, who was nice but wasn't, who _hurt_ her more than she would have thought possible. Where was the happy-go-lucky pervert who had educated her best friend? And why had she actually expected anything? Why hadn't she managed to detach herself from him as she had tried to do? The wound was fresh, too fresh for her to ignore. And it hurt too damn much.

-:-

Jiraiya entered the cave cautiously, walking on eggshells. He had some major apologizing to do and he in no way fancied another blow that would send him flying halfway to Suna.

In the dark cave, no sound could be heard. Had she stopped grinding her medical herbs?

He ventured further in on his tiptoes, looking this way and that, and stopped short at her sight. She looked incredibly small and afraid, and the way she had closed her arms around herself in a protective manner, it looked like she wanted to make herself as small as possible.

Not daring to touch her, he stopped behind her and murmured in a low voice that conveyed how regretful he felt, "I'm sorry. You reminded me of someone I know and the resentment I feel at her actions toward me kinda took over for a moment. I…It doesn't make it okay, but…I didn't come here to mock you or hurt you. I…Please tell me how I can make it up to you?"

And then he waited, feeling like he had as a child when his mother had reprimanded him for something bad he had done that time.

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Jiraiya…One of my favorite characters…He's just too great.


	8. Real Relations and Sheepish Sannins

Hey there, people! Hope you like this. I had so much fun writing it. Can I repeat that Jiraiya is one of my favorite characters? ^^ Anyway, Itachi enters the picture once again with Shisui! I love him too…Wait until I introduce more of my favorite characters…Hehehe.

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Completely idiotic.

"Wait a minute, I'm almost done cutting that tree down!"

Really idiotic.

The pastel-haired child shook her head, wiped her hands on a rag and headed for the entrance of the cave. She stood on the ledge and yelled back, "I don't need _that_ much wood! You've already cut down _three _trees. That's ample wood for me!"

"Nonsense!" came the answer from somewhere to her right. "You can never have too much wood!"

"Don't you think you're going _a little_ too overboard?"

Jiraiya looked around him, putting down his axe. He scratched the back of his head thoughtfully and shouted back somewhat sheepishly: "You think so?"

"Come back, you idiot!" hollered Sakura. "You're just going to pull a muscle!"

A moment later, a pained yell came to her ears and she slapped her forehead. Of course.

"The idiot," she groaned without any real irritation. "Are you alright?"

"Owwwww…I hurt my back…"

Yep. An idiot.

She heaved a sigh and helped him get back to the cave, figuring he must look like an old woman, hunched over as he was with a hand on his back.

"You know, you really should listen to me. I'm the medic, you know?" she asked in a semi-sympathetic, semi-annoyed voice that only mothers were supposed to have mastered.

"I'll be sure to remember that next time," groaned Jiraiya. He gingerly sat down on a stone stool, only to be gently steered left and down onto some furs the child had placed on the ground next to him.

He hissed lightly as Sakura gently divested him of his top and slowly made him lie down on top of the furs. He felt her hands travel down the expanse of his back, but those same hands pulled his head back down on his arms when he tried to look at her.

"Don't move," ushered the child.

He lay still, wondering what she was doing, and then felt her bare feet land softly just above his waistband.

"Not that I mind, but what are–"

"Just relax…and feel…" murmured the small doctor.

The coolness of her feet was suddenly replaced by a strange warmth that was not entirely unfamiliar. As her feet moved over his back in a massage he had hoped once he would get from his old teammate, the soothing warmth followed, seeping tension from his body in a way that made his eyes flutter shut in drowsiness. The pressure lifted, the only one left being that of the small feet next to his shoulder blades.

"Hey…Don't sleep on the floor, ojii-san. If you want to nap, which I would understand because of your age, you can do it elsewhere, ne?"

He blinked, focusing on the playful tone. He craned his neck, looking at the child as she walked out of the room with a "Time for _me_ to relax my muscles. I'll be bathing if anyone's looking for me."

_Did I fall asleep?_

It was totally against every preservation instinct he had to fall asleep in front of somebody he did not know completely. To let himself be vulnerable…It was a good thing the girl had not tried to slit his throat, for he had no doubt she would have managed to kill him. How pathetic and laughable that would have been.

He rolled on his side and looked pensively at the corridor through which the child had disappeared. She sure was a strange one.

Back in the bathing room of sorts, Sakura sank into the water gratefully.

_Aaah, hot water…how godlike it is…_

The first thing Jiraiya had done for her after she had told him she didn't want anything from him had been to put his sealing knowledge to use. He had installed one of his seals where water trickled down into a stream in the basin. If she pushed some chakra into the seal, it heated up the water, which soon made it into a deliciously hot bath. The second seal he had drawn was on the walls next to the entrance and kept the humidity from the waterfall from getting into the cave. It made it significantly easier for her to dry herbs, as she didn't have to take them back inside the cave when it rained outside and they didn't really dry inside.

She lowered herself into the water and sighed happily. Hot water was such a luxury.

"Um…There's some guy bleeding all over the floor back here," called Jiraiya out from the corridor.

"Not again…"

_I should stop taking baths, it's the same thing every time…_

-:-

"We're going the wrong way."

Itachi didn't answer, knowing his cousin would continue to pester him one way or another. However, he was not looking forward to the next round of questioning, so he answered shortly, "I know."

His teammates stayed silent, knowing the older Uchiha would ask anyway and thus bear the brunt of Itachi's irritation.

"Weeeeeell? Well, well, well? Why are we going that way? That's not the way to Konoha and if we don't get back soon, this excellent teammate of ours will lose his leg!" he pointed out as though Itachi hadn't noticed that he and their other teammate were supporting their comrade who had some harpoon-like weapon stuck in his thigh.

"I _know_, Shisui. That's why we're going this way."

"Eeeeh? Do you know something I don't or something?" asked his surprised cousin.

"Or something. Now shut up and run."

Shisui shook his head and obeyed his cousin's command, knowing Itachi was an excellent ninja and cared for his team as he would for Sasuke at home. He would get their captain some help.

-:-

"Is he going to be able to ever walk again?" asked Shisui anxiously as Sakura carefully pulled the weapon out of its fleshy sheath.

"He will, but he'll have one big scar, that's for sure. Although considering the fact that gangrene would have settled in his leg if you hadn't gotten him to me, that's a minor setback, if you ask me. He's going to be just fine with some rest."

"That's a relief!" sighed Shisui, tension leaving his shoulders. "Thank you so much! And, err…sorry for getting you out of your bath."

The doctor shook her head with a tired smile and retorted gently, "I knew what I was getting into when I opened my door to any ninja who came by."

Itachi kept a close eye on her movements, looking very much like the silent vigil he was. He wanted to talk to her, but knew there was nothing worse than breaking a medic's concentration when said medic operated on a comrade.

Still, he knew he had some things to talk to her about. Such as: Why the hell was Jiraiya here?

The older shinobi looked at him with wise eyes and stayed silent, letting Sakura have all the space and quiet she needed to operate efficiently, handing her whatever items she needed when asked for it. They worked well as a team, Jiraiya acting as her eyes whenever she needed him to and keeping her from having to stop in the middle of her work to fetch rags or jars full of medicine. Question was, how did Jiraiya come to know the place so well?

In the end, Sakura wrapped some bandages around their captain's thigh after having smeared some foul-smelling unguent on his scar.

"This will help the rejuvenation of the skin and lessen the scarring. I'll reapply it tomorrow. For now, you shouldn't move, shinobi-san," she explained to their captain gently. "If you move your leg too soon, you'll undo all I've done, so be sure to get plenty of rest. Something to eat would probably help, too. Let's see what we've got, ne?"

Soon enough, all ninja found themselves eating happily until their stomachs were ready to explode. Most of them were sitting on furry pillows, for Sakura still had only two stone stools, but no one complained.

"Hm…Maybe I should invest in some more stools," she murmured pensively.

"Sensei, can I speak to you privately?" asked Itachi a moment later, making her turn her head to him in question.

"Sure, let's go outside," she suggested, getting up.

As they headed for the waterfall, Shisui catcalled aggravatingly, "Hey, lovebirds! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Both children ignored him in favor of going outside, far away from prying ears. They settled for a spot not too far, but where she knew the males wouldn't hear them because of the noise from the waterfall and the distance and from which Itachi could see the entrance of the cave and thus spot any spying cousins.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" asked Sakura as soon as she sat down on a moss-covered boulder.

"Otou-sama sends you his regards and okaa-sama wanted me to convey her wishes of having you visit her sometime soon," expressed Itachi bluntly.

"Please tell her I shall. Now tell me why you _really_ wanted to speak to me alone. You didn't need to get me here just to tell me that," answered Sakura just as bluntly.

"Why is Jiraiya-sama here?"

Before she could retort anything in her astonished state, a matter-of-fact tone echoed behind her.

"That would be because I'm her father."

-:-

_What. The. Hell?_

"We have to talk," growled Sakura in a dark, menacing voice to the Sannin. "Please excuse us for a moment," she told Itachi politely and, grabbing the old man's arm, dragged him away behind her.

Once they were far enough, she rounded on him and hissed angrily, "What the fuck? Why did you tell him you were my father? What could possibly have possessed you to do such an _insane_ thing?"

"Well," shrugged Jiraiya, "if you had parents who mean anything to you, you wouldn't be living here all alone, and this way, you'll have some backing if anybody tries to do anything to you."

Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose, repeating to herself that he did not have any bad intentions. Several times.

"And you didn't stop to think that the fact that everyone will think I'm your daughter won't paint a target sign on me for anyone who wishes to hurt Konoha? I'm _neutral_, you know? Neutral! Fuck! This is going to be fucking great!" she ranted.

She paced back and forth, grumbling angrily; Jiraiya stayed out of her way, figuring if her temper was half as explosive as Tsunade's, he had better stay far from any wayward punches.

"Ano…We only have to ask them to stay silent, and everything will be alright," he finally said hopefully.

"Ha. Silent. That Shisui wouldn't be able to stay silent about this if it killed him."

She didn't know him, but she had heard of him from Sasuke and he seemed a little too alike Naruto. If he was anything like her blond friend, unable to keep a secret, soon enough, everyone in and out of Konoha would think Jiraiya was her father.

And yet, she knew that Jiraiya had not had any bad intentions; he simply had not thought enough about the consequences of his actions. Logically, she could not stay angry at him, but if she didn't, she would probably end up wilting in place. Still, she had to try to calm down, if only for the sake of her poor arteries.

"Just…Never do that again, alright?" she said in a tired voice, shoulders sagging. "Even if we deny we're related, it's too late and it will only convince people we're trying to hide it."

The jovial toad sage scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile and agreed in a small, boyish voice.

"Good," she sighed, feeling more tired than ever. Naruto truly took after his old mentor. He never failed to tire her out completely, yet she never could stay angry at him when he acted stupidly. Wait. Why did she feel like a mother? She was frickin' younger than Jiraiya!

Kami, thank the powers that be that she couldn't see her graying hair!

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Ojii-san: grandfather

Otou-sama: father

Okaa-sama: mother


	9. Senses

Yay, another chapter! More interaction with Jiraiya, for those of you who like him, and for once, he'll actually be useful! By the way, people, I'll do my best to update, but since I'm failing two classes so far, I'm gonna concentrate on studying so that I _don't_ fail them. That means this fic will be updated whenever I have time to write (or am just too tired to study anymore). That being said, good reading!

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"So…He's your father," enunciated Shisui slowly, trying to get a grasp of the idea. "How did that happen?"

"He slept with my whore of a mother," replied Sakura tartly. Jiraiya scratched the back of his head with a sheepish little smile, feeling thoroughly scrutinized by a couple of pairs of eyes.

"She had red hair," continued Sakura with something akin to sadism, reveling in Jiraiya's uneasiness.

"Ah…That's why yours is pink…" murmured Shisui pensively, looking at the mop of pastel hair that adorned the doctor's head.

"Hmhmm."

Shisui stayed silent for a long moment, then looked at Jiraiya and asked bluntly, "And you came here to visit your daughter? By the way, how come we never heard of your relation and why doesn't she live with you?"

"Ah, that's because he only just learned that I existed. He went to visit my mother, learned that she was dead, and looked for me when he learned that she had had a daughter. And there we are," explained Sakura, changing the bandages on the captain's thigh.

Itachi listened intently, unsurprised at Jiraiya's attitude. It was well-known that the Sannin was a skirt-chaser, but he had to admit it was the first time he had heard of any progeny that had resulted of one of his adventures.

-:-

"Whooohoooooo!"

Jiraiya smiled at the enthusiastic whoop. Once the Konoha team had left, Sakura had seemed to relax and now acted like the child she was. For the last hour, she had taken to running at the top of the cliff and jump down, legs and arms spread on either side of herm and land softly on top of the running water.

At one point, she had even used a large piece of bark and, anchoring herself to it with chakra, had surfed down the waterfall. Unfortunately, the bark had broken after two more rides and she had resolved to fly off the cliff happily, yelling in utter joy at the feeling of the freefall. It was a bit reminiscent of the adrenaline rush she got when she fought, back when she could see.

Sitting on a boulder next to the river, Jiraiya, smoking tranquilly, looked at his new daughter peacefully. It was strange how he did not feel like leaving; after all, it had been a few days since he'd arrived and he usually never stayed long in one place. Maybe he was getting old. And that warm feeling he got in his chest whenever he looked at her was thoroughly alien. He wondered what it was.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" he called out.

"Hai? What is it?" answered Sakura, lightly jumping on the riverside not far from him.

"Won't they eventually find out you're not really my daughter?" he pondered out loud.

"Iie. I've got no family, no friends…"

She trailed off pensively before adding, "I come from far, far away…farther than you could imagine…"

Jiraiya remained silent, listening to her speak detachedly, as though her mind was far away and only her body was left behind.

"Anyway, it will be hard if they want to corroborate it, unless they test our genes. And by then, you could either say that you accept me even if I'm not your daughter like you thought, or you could repudiate me, whichever you prefer," shrugged Sakura, burying her toes in the warm sand at her feet.

"…What about you?" asked the Sannin slowly, trying not to inflect his tone with anything.

"Me?" answered Sakura questioningly, looking thoroughly baffled. "What about me?"

"Well, what would you prefer?" explained the shinobi patiently. "I know it's because of me you're in this mess, so I figured I'd ask you what you'd prefer me to do…"

Once more, the child shrugged and flopped down onto the shore.

"It doesn't matter much either way to me. I like you, but if you keep me as a daughter, plenty of ill-intentioned people will come looking for me. On the other hand, if we want them to leave me alone, you'd have to never see me again, and that would be lonely, ne? In the end, I think it doesn't really matter."

She walked to him calmly and retrieved her kimono from the rock, which made him blurt out suddenly, "You do know it's indecent to walk around in nothing more than a loincloth, right?"

Sakura chuckled heartily, putting the garment on, and threw over her shoulder, "Even you aren't _that_ much of a pervert, jiji. Besides, this is the only kimono I have. I have to treasure it."

Jiraiya spluttered that he was no old man and that he was still in his prime, thank you very much, but Sakura wasn't listening to him anymore.

"I wonder if I should move…"

Jiraiya stopped short.

"Eh?"

"I know, I know, this is a nice place, calm and everything, but…Hmmm…Maybe I should think about relocating. What do you think?"

"Wait, wait, wait, I think I missed a chapter or something. You want to relocate? Why? You like it here! You told me so yourself!"

Sakura smiled and shrugged with the barest sigh.

"Well, I can take care of myself, but with the shit that's going to be raining down on me, I probably should make myself scarce. After all, if one or two guys come to fuck me up, I can take care of them, but I'm severely at a disadvantage here, y'know? I can't see shit, and although I have the advantage of home ground, if the guys who come after me know their job, it won't do squat. Back when I could see, I could have taken them with one hand behind my back–alright, maybe I'm exaggerating a tad bit, no need to snort–but now…I feeling a tad defenseless here."

_There goes the guilt again…_thought Jiraiya, mentally wincing.

"Aah…That _would _be problematic…"

"Hmmhmm," hummed Sakura, heading back to the cave with the older man trailing behind her slowly. "You're eventually gonna go back to wandering, looking for inspiration and information, and I'll have to fend off those guys alone–no offense, but you've already stayed here way longer than anybody would have expected you to, considering I don't have big boobs. Hey, don't feel so responsible, nothing ever lasts. I would've been screwed anyway in the long run. Dealing with ninja kinda tends to have that effect on people. So don't feel bad, ok?" she asked sweetly with a small smile and a pat on his arm.

"You're a sweet child, Sakura-chan, you know that?" asked Jiraiya mildly, squeezing her against his side.

"Iie, I'm not," replied Sakura just as mildly, "but you don't know the half of it. And hopefully you never will have to; some things are better left buried."

"Whatever you say, pretty girl, whatever you say."

"Stop chuckling. I mean it."

Jiraiya continued laughing low in his throat.

"I _know_ I've got pink hair. That doesn't make me an angel."

"Hmmhmm."

"You're aggravating."

-:-

"Did I tell you recently that I love you?"

"Only twice in the last ten minutes," chuckled Jiraiya at the exhilarated child. "How does it feel?"

"Warm. Like home. Kami, it's amazing."

Jiraiya lounged against a tree, observing Sakura warmly as she moved around, picking up rock and sticks and the occasional plant, muttering happily to herself.

"You know, you still have to practice."

"I know," replied Sakura, lifting her head from where she was crouching, "but still, it's just too great! I can see! I can see!" she whooped happily.

"Well…Don't get too excited. It's never going to be as great as actually seeing, but I guess it can give you an edge," explained Jiraiya cautiously, unwilling to burst her bubble.

"An edge? You taught me how to feel nature's energy!" she exclaimed, jumping on him and flinging her arms around his neck. She rubbed her nose against him and nuzzled his neck; Jiraiya's arms wrapped loosely around her tiny form.

"The feeling that I get when I sense nature…it's like freedom in a sake bottle. I can _feel_ nature! I can sense the energy of every last seed lying in the soil five inches in the ground! Like chakra–but different. And even rocks and water have it! Kami, this is great. This is truly great."

The Sannin smiled warmly and shifted her so she lay on his back and stood up. As expected, she was overjoyed at the piggyback ride back to her home.

"I know it's not easy, but try to distinguish things from one another," recommended Jiraiya, hiking back to the waterfall. "Right now, some things are easier to recognize than others, like plants versus animals, but eventually, if you concentrate hard enough, you'll be able to feel more than just globs of energy."

"Right. So should I continue to meditate?" asked the child from her perch on his back, playing with a strand of his hair.

"Hai. Expand your senses, but also try to sharpen them in order to be able to distinguish everything that is around you clearly. It's hard work, and at first, you're only going to be able to identify the general location of that which you're looking for, but one day, you might even be able to read scrolls!"

-:-

Uchiha Fugaku stepped out of his study, fully intent on going to see the Hokage and coming back as soon as possible, preferably in time for supper. But then again, the old man didn't have a wife and two kids waiting at home for him, so it could take much longer than what he accepted as a normal length of time for a meeting.

His ninja instincts came in handy as he almost collided with a courier as he slid the front door open. Being who he was, he then proceeded to give his best Uchiha dark glare to the young man, thoroughly conveying his disdain with the heavy-lidded stare.

"What is it?" he asked in his most contemptuous tone.

The courier, who obviously had never stepped foot in a compound, never mind seen the head of a ninja clan, reached in his bag and took out a scroll that he then handed him with shaking hands.

"For you, Uchiha-sama."

With a bow, the courier then scurried away with a muttered, "Kami, never again…if only that scroll didn't have to be delivered only to the recipient…"

Curious, Fugaku checked the scroll for any harmful jutsu he could think of, but he came out with negative results. Wondering who would have addressed a message to him by courier, instead of using a messenger hawk, he cautiously opened the scroll, immediately recognizing the handwriting.

"What the…"

"'Tou-san! Did you get a letter? Who's that from?" asked his youngest son, running to him. He stopped in front of him, barely staying still and clearly refraining from peeking at the scroll.

"It's a letter from Sakura-sensei, apparently, but she's not the one who wrote it," he enunciated slowly, scanning the letter rapidly.

"Eeeh? What does it say?" asked Sasuke curiously. "Is she going to visit us soon?"

"She says she's training at the moment with Jiraiya-sama–that's who's writing the letter–and that she'll soon be able to move around independently and read letters, if we want to send her some–there, she says she's looking forward to having news of you, Sasuke-kun. And that for now, if we want to send her some, she can read them if we mix some of our blood or chakra in the ink. She send us her best regards and says she will probably by be soon."

"Soon? What does 'soon' mean, 'tou-san? Like tomorrow?"

Faugaku looked at his son with a glint of amusement in his eyes that contrasted with his otherwise impassive face.

"That may be a bit too soon, Sasuke-kun. You're going to have to be patient," explained Fugaku.

"Awww…" pouted Sasuke, looking down. "But I want to see her…"

"Things that are waited for are more satisfying than any others, Sasuke-kun, believe me on that one."

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Next chapter, I swear Itachi will appear again, and maybe another character from Konoha…we'll see.

Jiji: a familiar way of calling an old man, much like "Granpa"


	10. Meeting Naruto

Lucky you, inspiration struck and I cooked up this little baby. Instead of studying. Which means I'm really stupid. Do enjoy the product of my stupidity.

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Sakura had trained a while more, during which the Uchiha clan Head sent her a letter stating he awaited her visit using a messenger hawk. Now that she could read, he had written, he wished her to keep the hawk so they could communicate more frequently. Figuring it would be easier to send word if any Konoha ninja stopped by, she graciously accepted the hawk and named it Konoha. That way, even if she was far from her beloved village, it always was near her. The hawk turned out to be remarkably intelligent and reliant. She took to sending her–apparently, Uchiha Fugaku had thought it a good idea to send her a female–to get her some supplies once in a while. The hawk usually spent her time on the child's shoulder, occasionally pecking her cheek, and basically kept her company when Jiraiya was outside doing whatever it was he did when things got too medical for him.

-:-

"That bird is infernal."

"Suck it up, jiji," replied Sakura, packing a few necessary items into a bag.

The older man crossed his arms, pouting, and wished he could give a dark glare to the bird currently perched atop his head.

"At least it won't come with us all the way back to Konohagakure."

"I would take her," said Sakura, grabbing her money pouch, "but she has to stay here in case somebody comes here for my services. She'll come and get me if it happens so I can go back."

Jiraiya frowned minutely and grabbed her arm, stopping her short in her packing. He turned her forearm up and gently ran the pad of his thumb across her wrist.

"You don't even know if it'll work…As I thought, I should have tested it first…" he said regretfully, regarding the tattoo that adorned her wrist with sad eyes.

"Hey, now, _I_ asked you to do it. And it _is_ my life, isn't it? Besides, this was my idea in the first place. I'd probably have tried it without you, so just take it as a favor you did me and I won't kick your ass too far if you peep on women in front of me. Tattoos have always fascinated me. I used to know a guy who could animate ink and since then, I always thought I should try something, experiment, you know? And _then_ you came by, with your sealing skills and your perverseness, and I finally had time to put on this project of mine…Don't you think it turned out OK? It's almost classy, ne?"

The Sannin sighed. Of course he had done his best, but it was the first time he had tattooed anybody. Disturbingly enough, it seemed like _she_ knew exactly what to do. It was a little disheartening. He had managed not to mess up, and if did say so, his work looked mighty fine. The seal was small, but it was detailed. And complicated. He knew it would be effective, but he would still have preferred to test it beforehand. _And _ it was now a permanent fixture on her tiny body.

"I take full responsibility, so if anything goes wrong, you can blame me all you want, alright?" she said lightly.

An image of her lying deathly still in a hospital bed, her pink hair the only thing differing from the sterile white of the room. He shook his head, feeling singularly cold inside.

"Let's just get going."

"Let's do that."

-:-

"Birght day."

"Get lost, I don't know you."

Jiraiya pouted and trudged behind her as she quickened her pace. A bright handprint showed on his cheek.

"But Sakura-chan, I'm your father!" he whined like a child.

"Not since the first thing you did upon entering Konoha was grabbing a woman's butt. Stop following me."

"Come on, don't be so cold!"

Sakura sighed tiredly, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"Didn't you have a meeting with the Hokage or something?"

"Aaaaaaah!" cried the white-haired man in horror. "You're right!"

He ran off, leaving a cloud of dust behind and a relieved child with pastel hair.

_Now, where was I?_ she pondered tranquilly, a small smile on her lips. Now she could buy some more medical equipment and maybe some clothes worthy of a kunoichi if she got her mobility back. She liked her kimono, but it was impractical for moving around too much.

She decided to stop by the clothing store first. No use in carrying around medical equipment out into the open when anybody could run into her and jostle the fragile things. After getting directions from a puzzled civilian, she managed to find the store, hoping it would have clothes in her size. Then again, ninja clans tended to make their children wear those to get them used to the feeling and to encourage them to honor the clan. Her hand was on the handle of the door when said door burst open and a small form was thrown at her. She went down with a whoomph and wondered dizzily what had just happened.

"Watch it, teme!" yelled a youthful voice from somewhere above her. Must be from the person who had been thrown out bodily. "One day, you'll beg me to shop at your store, and you'll be very sorry when I don't! 'Cause I'm gonna be Hokage, dattebayo!"

There was no answer and the gathering crowd slowly dispersed. Only then did the person on top of her seem to realize that she was still cushioning them. And it even took her clearing her throat for the child to get off of her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't–huh? Sakura-chan?"

Small hands pulled her up gently if energetically and checked her for injuries, then the youthful voice continued with admiration, "Whoa, you grew up a lot overnight, Sakura-chan!"

_Naruto._

"My name _is_ Sakura, but somehow, I doubt I'm the one you're talking about."

"Are you her older sister, then? I thought Sakura-chan was an only child! Or her cousin?"

"Iie," chuckled Sakura at his enthusiasm. "We just happen to share pink hair and unimaginative parents when it comes to naming their children. And you? What's your name?"

"My name's Naruto and I'm gonna be Hokage one day, dattebayo!"

"Then you'll have to work hard, right? To become the best ninja in this village."

Young Naruto's eyes widened and sparkled, not that the older girl could see it. He grinned brilliantly and hugged tightly the first person ever who hadn't laughed at his dream.

"You're great, nee-chan!" he exclaimed happily.

"Not really, I just have the feeling that people's moral standards are not very high. What were you doing before getting thrown out?"

"Ah, I was trying to buy some clothes, but they threw me out. Looks like I'll have to buy my usual jumpsuit. I like orange, but…those jumpsuits are the only clothes I'm able to afford, with all their crazy prices."

"Well, wanna do some shopping with me? If you keep me company until my father comes back, I'll buy you the clothes you want. Deal?"

The bright child whooped and hugged her once more with an exuberant, "Deal!"

Smiling, Sakura entered the clothing store, her smile turning into a smirk when she heard the cashier growl and chirped smugly, "He's with me, and I'm a customer. Unless you want to lose business, I suggest you don't try to kick me out. Oh, and by the way, my father has a meeting with the Hokage right now. You may know him. His name's Jiraiya."

Alright, that was a dirty shot, but if she'd wanted to fight fair and square, she would have become a samurai, not a ninja.

-:-

Uchiha Itachi was sitting on a rooftop across the street. He had a convenient view of the inside of the store and had been observing it for a while now. He had been going home after an intense training session when a spot of bright pink had made him stop short in his tracks. At first, he had thought it was the girl who had a crush on his younger brother, but he had made a double-take when he had noticed the black blindfold. So the doctor was back in town.

Feeling disturbingly like a stalker, he observed her purchase some ninja clothes for her and the brash knucklehead who accompanied her. She ended up buying a short kimono alike her own in coloring, except that one ended at mid-thigh. To preserve her modesty, he surmised, she bought tight short black shorts and a couple of pairs of black Capri pants, probably to be ready for shifts in temperature. In the end, he thought that she had been rather reasonable. The blond kid next to her had been way more enthusiastic than her. He had browsed through the clothes with rare happiness, jumping in joy when his hands touched the fabric freely, without fear that he would be thrown out for doing so. He had been a bit bashful at being treated by a stranger, so he had only asked for a jumpsuit, but a black one. With orange lining. Of course.

As curious as he was, he would be late if he didn't return home soon, so he left as soon as the two children stepped out of the store.

-:-

Ichiraku Ramen. She guessed she had to take the blond there at least _one_ time. It was something of a classic in her team. Well, in the future, that is. And it seemed like Naruto was still just as much of a fan of ramen as in her time.

"You're the best, Sakura-nee-chan!"

"Don't forget to chew, ne?"

The blond smiled brightly and nodded, continuing to gulp down mouthfuls of the hot meal.

"Hmmmm…Ramen is the best food in the world!" exclaimed Naruto contentedly, rubbing his stomach.

"But not the most nutritious. If you want to be Hokage, you'll have to make sure your body doesn't fail you. Especially on the battlefield. You think you can do that without vegetables?"

Naruto made a disgusted face that Sakura could imagine exactly for having seen it times and times again. Fortunately, she didn't have to actually see it.

"But Sakura-nee-chaaaan! Veggies are yucky!"

Sakura mentally rolled her eyes.

"They won't accept that excuse if you make Hokage," she deadpanned.

Naruto winced; she felt bad for him.

"You know why vegetables cost more? Because they're better for your health. You should get used to eating some regularly. For the moment, when you eat ramen, why don't you add some?"

"And that will make me taller?" asked Naruto uncertainly.

"It sure will!" assured Sakura firmly.

"Maybe I'll try it…" muttered Naruto, looking down at his half-full bowl. "But if I don't like it, I ain't eatin' it!"

It was better than she could have expected, so with a shrug, she agreed, "Fair enough. Now take this daikon slice."

That was how Jiraiya found them, less than an hour later. With a last smile and a wave, Sakura said her goodbyes and followed the Sannin out of the restaurant.

"Did you get everything you needed?" he asked, putting her bag on his shoulder.

"Mmhm! That and more," she replied happily. "Everything went well on your side?"

"It did, and it was nice to see Sarutobi-sensei again."

Sakura nodded, humming under her breath. They still had some time before meeting the Uchiha and getting there early would do no good. Busy as they were, they would probably not be available. Knowing how clans were, she thought they would most probably be in a meeting. They had both done everything they had to, now they only had to waste time. And she had an idea about how to do just that.

"Hey, jiji, let's get some drinks."

-:-

In any bar, you expect to see all kinds of more-or-less drunk and sleazy people. Bars are places of predilection for ninja looking for a strong drink to forget, relax, or simply to look inconspicuous on a mission. But despite the rather colorful crowd you can find in a bar, there is one kind you don't often see: children who can drink more than a full-seasoned alcoholic.

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Gah! What the hell am I doing, writing instead of studying? Shit, I must have a death wish or something.


	11. Sake and Blood

Well…Looks like I ended up taking a break and writing this…I simply had too much imagination. And you even get some reflection on Itachi's part! Whoooo!

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There were some things Sakura didn't like when drinking. One was being stared at. She knew she had pink hair, no need for everyone to announce it. Another was for people to gossip about her when she could hear them.

It was thus no surprise that Sakura felt irritation bite at her in the Lazy Kunai, the bar which had been her favorite to frequent with her friends.

"What are they looking at?" she grouched, downing her cup of sake. She thought they would have stopped staring at her after she'd forcefully convinced the bouncer that she was old enough to drink, some time ago. She then upturned said cup and added it to her pyramid of empty cups, noting belatedly that it was beginning to get quite high. Maybe she should make the base larger.

"Hey, jiji, do you think I should make the base larger?" she asked Jiraiya, frowning slightly at her pyramid.

Sitting to her right at the counter, Jiraiya turned his head in her direction and raised an eyebrow.

"_That's_ the reason why everyone is staring at you. You _are_ aware of that, aren't you?"

Slowly, the child turned her head in his direction, a thoroughly unimpressed look on her face that clearly spelled "Duh, whaddya think?"

"It's been a while since I've had the chance to drink good sake. Don't spoil my fun."

The Sannin shared a look with the barman and wisely kept from saying anything about her age. She was scary enough when she was sober; he had no desire to taste her punches while she was slightly inebriated. If she was anything like Tsunade, her strength would duplicate due to her state.

"Well…The only other woman I've ever brought to a bar who could drink as much as you without being completely sloshed was Tsunade-hime," enunciated Jiraiya slowly.

Sakura spewed her mouthful of sake all over the bar counter and began to cough loudly, punching her chest to stop her coughing. She carefully avoided looking at him, cheeks reddening, and took another sip of sake detachedly. Too detachedly.

"Wait…Do you know her?" asked Jiraiya incredulously. "Is that how you punch that hard? And how you gained those drinking skills?"

"Err…I have no idea who she is," said the doctor unconvincingly, causing Jiraiya and the other patrons around her to look at her as though she was crazy or stupid, sometimes both. There was no one in the ninja world who hadn't heard of Tsunade, the Slug Sannin.

Fortunately for her, Konoha came flying in the crowded bar, screeching loudly, and perched on top of her tower precariously. The hawk screeched once more, prompting her into action, and with a salute and a "See you later", she pressed two chakra-encased fingers to her tattoo and let the chakra flow into the seal. With a last small smile, she disappeared from the scene.

-:-

A bloodbath. That's what awaited her when she appeared suddenly in her cave. Three unconscious ninja with a last one barely hanging on to consciousness, seemingly the only one who had managed to do so to inform her of their situation. One had senbon sticking out from his body like a porcupine, two had kunai piercing or at least grazing some of their internal organs, and the last one had deep slashes all over his torso. And they were bleeding all over the floor.

Immediately going into medic-mode, Sakura threw a lab coat over her kimono and prepared to stabilize them. It was going to be a long night.

-:-

Uchiha Fugaku kept his eyes on the white-haired man in front of him. Jiraiya the Sannin was not exactly the person he had expected to be standing in front of him at the moment. Or at least, not alone.

"So while out drinking at a bar, the hawk I gave Sakura-sensei arrived, delivering a message that she had to go back to her cave, and she disappeared on the spot thanks to a seal that you tattooed on her wrist, which you don't even know is working? Tell me if I'm forgetting something."

Jiraiya laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. He really was bad at handling clan members, much less the Heads of those clans. He mentally applauded his old teacher for managing to do it on a year-round basis.

"Aaaah…That's pretty much it, Uchiha-sama. But please, don't worry about it. I'm sure of my skills. That seal will work exactly the way it was supposed to. Once she is done with whatever urgent matter she had to attend to, she will come back to visit you, I assure you."

"I have no doubt of that," assured Fugaku sternly, eyes piercing, looking every bit the Clan Head he was.

His mind whirred rapidly, going through possibilities. Logically, if the young doctor had returned home in a hurry, it had to be because there was a dire situation waiting for her back there. However, Sasuke would not stop harassing him until the pastel-haired child was back. The sooner the better. Who could he send to get her who was fast and efficient and was not out on a mission at the moment? His mind went through the possibilities in a second.

_Oh, I know who to send._

"Hatake Kakashi is not on any mission at the moment. If she did not arrive at her home, his dogs will be able to locate her, wherever she is. To keep him in check, I'll send Itachi-kun to assist him."

-:-

Travelling with Hatake Kakashi was barely better than doing so with his green-clad friend. For one, he was late. If Sakura-sensei was in bad shape, every minute could be important. And while he ran fast, he read his pornographic novels all the way to the deceptively small sensei's home. There was worse company, but there was hardly any more embarrassing one. Fortunately, the journey was easy, no one attacking them, and they soon came in sight of the waterfall.

"Maa…There we are, Uchiha-san," remarked Kakashi blithely without looking up from his book. Sometimes, Itachi wondered how he managed to do that. Despite not being a Hyuuga, he always acted as though he had eyes at the back of his head.

"Hn."

He took some pleasure in annoying the Hatake with his monosyllabic replies, but he made sure no smirk graced his face. That would give him away entirely.

They entered the cave slowly, sensing several chakra signatures within and walked in without masking their presence.

"Hello? Sakura-sensei?" called Itachi to the darkness.

"In here!" answered the youthful voice of the doctor.

Within moments, they stood next to her in one of the adjoining caves that had not been there the last time Itachi had been there. Then again, it had been a few months and he even had had time to make chuunin. He had heard from his father that he would have asked the pinkette to be his medic during the exams if only she hadn't been training.

Apparently, she had managed to carve this cave to host her patients more comfortably. He did not know how she had carved it, but the walls were smooth and covered with phosphorescent moss. He understood that it was a bad idea to make a fire in a cave because the smoke couldn't get out, so that was probably her way of making things easier for her patients to move around as they, unlike her, were not accustomed to the darkness.

On the makeshift beds lay a group of ninja in their twenties, unmoving. He could see why in their crimson-patterned bandages. The young girl was currently changing one of the men's bandages gently. Sitting behind him, she had his head in her lap as she unraveled the bandages around his neck. The man looked tired but at peace as she slowly coursed her fingers through his hair. She looked oddly maternal as she sat there, shushing the man softly when he gave a moan of pain or two. Next to him, Kakashi groaned at the potent smell of blood.

"Itachi-san. Your chakra isn't fluctuating like that of a person in distress. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?" she asked calmly, turning her head in his direction with a small smile.

"Hello, sensei. Hatake-san and I have been sent to retrieve you and find you in case you were not here. We have also brought you the medical equipment you left behind and your hawk."

Sakura nodded, acknowledging his words, and smiled as Konoha perched on her shoulder.

"Thank you for that. Please put them down somewhere near the entrance. Did that old man fret much?" she asked with the hint of a mischievous smile. "My father, I mean."

"He did," replied Itachi succinctly.

"He never listens to me when I tell him to trust in me, that baka," chuckled Sakura, shaking her head. Despite her words, her tone was warm and it was clear she did love the Sannin. "I'm just fine. Just so you can testify. And if you want me to accompany you, I'm afraid it's gonna have to wait until these guys can take care of themselves."

He already knew that much and didn't see any problem with it, nor, apparently, did Kakashi, who sat down next to the entrance and flipped through his book. Although he did mutter that he should have brought another volume just to be on the safe side. What if he ran out of orange bibles before they returned to Konoha?

"Oh, and if you guys want to train while I heal my patients, there is a clearing about a mile northwest of here that you can use."

The thought was tempting, but the young heir found himself much more fascinated by the doctor's movements as she drew slender fingers across the man's throat. A green tint appeared on her fingers, sign of medical chakra being used, and seeped into her patient's skin.

"What are you doing exactly?" asked Itachi in a low voice so as not to startle her or make her lose her concentration.

"He suffered a blow to the neck. He was lucky and it severed neither his spine nor his carotid, but it cut his vocal chords. I operated on him yesterday and reattached them, but he needed time to recover before I healed them more. This is a delicate process that I can't rush. I'll have a few sessions left after this one to repair them completely. Right now, I'll just stop at strengthening the point where I reattached the vocal chords. Later on, when he's had time to rest, I'll lessen the scarring and repeat the process until they are as good as new."

Itachi continued to observe her in silence.

"Will he recover completely?" he asked after a long moment.

"Well, he will remain scarred. That's kinda unavoidable, though I'm working on lessening scarring. Apart from that, he'll be just fine."

For a moment, everything was silent and the only sound that cut the silence was the steady flipping of pages coming from the entrance of the cave.

"There's a jar of unguent next to you. Can you bring it to me? I need to apply some on his neck before I put bandages back on."

Itachi reached to his right and took the jar, looking curiously at the whitish cream. He wondered whether she had done it herself or bought it as he handed it to her and watched as she spread some of it on the man's neck with gentle shushes to the ninja before reapplying the bandages.

And then she carefully brushed his hair away from his face and put his head down on his pillow.

"Be strong," she whispered heartily.

-:-

Over the next few days, Itachi found himself observing the doctor instead of training like he normally would have. He did not know why, but he found her completely fascinating, especially when she healed her patients. She was then utterly concentrated on her task which would seem so easy that anybody could do it. Yet he knew it was a characteristic of any master to make his or her actions seem effortless.

And every last one of her movements seemed practiced and calculated. She had clearly done them a million times over. Somehow, he thought that they compared to his mother's graceful movements when she practiced dancing with fans under their sakura tree in the spring. And it was utterly and heart-stoppingly beautiful.

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Thanks for reading, people! Now I'm going back to studying. Which I should have done in the first place. … Hm… So not tempting…


	12. The Wonders of Medical Chakra

This is me bone-weary and almost falling asleep standing up posting this little bit instead of trying to cram even more stuff into my head. I should be either studying or trying to get back my lost sleep. Those of you who aren't as fucked up as me and have enough energy to read this, enjoy.

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Although Sakura itched to talk to Kakashi, she knew that in this time, there was no reason for her to do so. He didn't know her and would probably look at her like she was crazy if she tried to approach him. She was thus quite happy when he squatted next to her, looking over her shoulder at the patient she was healing.

"Did Jiraiya-sama tell you anything about his new book?" he asked eagerly, or as eagerly as he would allow himself to appear.

With a knowing smile, she asked coyly: "Did you run out of Icha Icha to read, Hatake-san?"

"Would you be cruel enough not to tell me if I was, sensei?" he asked in an amused tone that almost managed to hide his fear that she would actually do just what he had said.

Sakura shrugged with a small smile and replied, full of mirth, that they would never know, for she did not know anything about her father's new book, except that he was working relentlessly on the manuscript.

"So I'm sorry, Hatake-san, but I'm completely unable to tell you whether or not there are threesomes involving big-chested women. Do believe me when I say I feel your pain. This is really a tragedy," she finished without an ounce of conviction. In fact, knowing that he would be pouting at the moment, she cracked up seconds later, sounding slightly crazy and relishing the fact that she did. Creeping people out was a great way to fight off boredom.

Somewhere to her left, Itachi refrained from snorting. Few people were able to get under the Hatake's skin as quickly and efficiently. It was as though she knew exactly what to say, which was quite amusing.

When she wasn't healing her steadily-recovering patients, she indulged in debates with both males. Of course, she had always been intelligent, so having people who could give her a challenge intellectually was a breath of fresh air. It seemed like it was the case for them, too, though they didn't openly show it. Well, just the fact that they did argue with her proved their interest, after all, so their interest wasn't quite hidden.

Though they had discussed about various things, most of them had been medical. As ninja, they knew that medic-nins were pretty much essential on a team to ensure the survival of everyone, but having some medical knowledge was better for everybody in case the medic got incapacitated. They had been very interested in her skills and had asked her various questions during her healing sessions, sometimes having her comment on the procedures as she went through them.

In some strange way, she felt oddly like a teacher.

-:-

"Sensei, how is he?" asked one of her patients as she carefully fed some broth to the one who had had senbon stuck everywhere in his body. He was still unable to move his arms, but the mild paralysis should abate sometime during the day. Considering he hadn't been able to move at all in the beginning, she supposed it was an improvement.

"He's getting better. That one's a fighter. I'd say by…mid-afternoon tomorrow, he'll be back to normal. And your comrade, if he refrains from putting strain on his vocal chords, will be fine by tonight. Until then, no talking."

The man thanked her heartily while the only female on that team looked at the doctor with scrutinizing eyes as she continued to feed her teammate and murmured, "That's great, what you're doing here, sensei. Without you, we probably wouldn't have made it."

Sakura smiled lightly and plunged the spoon back into the bowl.

"Well, just take it as my contribution to making this world more peaceful. This place is a haven for anybody who comes by, wherever they may come from. My modest hope is that ninja can learn to coexist peacefully here. Who knows, maybe they'll stop fighting, ne? That would be great, hm? So many less deaths…But that's only a little wish from a nobody who just happens to be a medic."

-:-

How surprising. So that was why she was staying in that remote place. He had always wondered why, especially that once she had learned who her father was. She could easily have left with him or settled in a bigger town if she so wished. He was sure Konoha, for one, would have accepted her with open arms. Still, he couldn't understand why she'd throw everything away just for the sake of an ideal. She could have grasped power easily and become someone important. And now she was only a medic instead of an influential member of ninja society.

"How can you throw away power so easily?" he blurted out suddenly while she was cooking.

She looked up, startled, and turned her head in his direction, clearly surprised at his question more than his sudden appearance.

"Power? Power doesn't make you happy, Itachi-san," she murmured with the wisdom and conviction of someone who had seen the horrors power could do. Even to his ears, the words sounded strangely ominous. "I, for one, am more interested in knowledge. As long as there are things out there that I can and have an opportunity to learn, I'll be satisfied. Of course, I'd be even more satisfied if I could learn them, but maybe that's a little too much to ask for. At least I get to meet interesting people."

She turned fully to him and her smile became wider.

"All in all, that's not such a bad life."

-:-

The team eventually left with heartfelt thanks and a reassurance to Sakura that they would not be treated as nuke-nin for not returning sooner.

"Well, if that happens, come back here and I'll shelter you. Hopefully, though, that won't happen, but just in case, take this letter. I explain in it what I've treated you for. Any medic would be able to confirm the recovery time it takes for such injuries. If only I'd had a messenger hawk from you village, I could have sent it with a message informing your Kage that you haven't deserted. Now get going!"

Thus, with enthusiastic cries of approval and thanks, the team left quickly; a silence stayed behind.

"Well, then, I suppose it's our turn now, isn't it?" asked Sakura rhetorically. A soft "Hn." was her only answer. At least she was fluent in Kakashiesque eye-language and Uchihaesque glowers and hns. Maybe she should write a book so that others could use it as a dictionary to interpret what these people meant. Few were lucky as she was to have been able to study and codify those gestures and sounds. Rolling her eyes, she put her pack on her shoulders and called out over said shoulders: "Whenever you want to accompany me, feel free to follow." As predicted, they were not far behind her.

-:-

As usual, Sasuke was very happy to see her. In fact, he was closer to ecstatic, which was borderline disturbing. She still was not used to seeing her old teammate act in any way differently than he did then. Cold indifference she would have known how to deal with. A normal kid, on the other hand…

This time, however, Sakura could move around somewhat normally. She still spent much time meditating to hone her skills in sensing nature's energy, as unless she concentrated hard, she could not distinguish between a human's energy and an animal's. Her goal was to be able to sense everything clearly unconsciously so that she didn't have to concentrate to be able to feel things around her. For now, when she didn't entertain the Uchiha or her father, she either meditated or disappeared to the library to read about medical techniques.

Most of the time, Itachi had to drag her out of that place before she spent the night there or forgot to eat. Surprisingly, he seemed to be the only one she would listen to. However, maybe that was because he was the only one who had enough patience to argue with her. Either way, she found herself more and more often in the company of the Uchiha Clan Heir.

Yet, between her time healing people and hanging out in Konoha, she was slowly but surely becoming known in the ninja world.

-:-

There were few things in life that could surprise Tsunade. However, hearing from her old teammate about her possibly having taught a girl other than Shizune immediately made her raise a questioning eyebrow. She had never had any other apprentice. Didn't the pervert know that?

"What is it, Tsunade-sama?" asked Shizune curiously as her master reread the letter they had just got, frowning this time.

"I wonder if too many blows to the head affected his sanity," murmured the busty blonde. "He seems to think I've taught a young girl. If I'd ever seen a girl with _pink_ hair–pink, can you imagine such an atrocity?–I sure as hell would remember her. Although…that is interesting…"

She closed her eyes and tried to imagine a young girl with skills similar to hers. A girl without eyes but with enough spirit to make any person jealous. And an explosive temper and a sharp tongue to boot. Her eyes snapped open. She wanted to meet that person.

-:-

"Sensei! As expected, the flower of youth is blooming brightly in you!" exclaimed Gai, throwing his arms around the diminutive girl and swinging her around. She laughed, peals of laughter escaping her lips at the sensation of freedom. He was such a nice person, it was a pity most people didn't bother to really listen to what he was saying.

"And you too, Gai-san," said the doctor as soon as he gently put her back down. "How about I use some of my strength of youth to help you with yours?" she continued, steering him to a nearby bench. She made him sit down and dragged chakra-encased fingers on his shoulders. The chakra seeped into his skin and muscles, easing them until he felt so light he didn't feel them anymore. He had not noticed that he could be tense at rest.

"If you relax your muscles when you're not training or on a mission, they'll serve you much better," explained Sakura.

"Wow…That feels good…" murmured Gai, head rolling on his chest as it grew as heavy as his eyelids.

"Doesn't it?" chuckled Sakura. "I swear, the wonders of medical chakra are too great to pass up."

Gai mumbled something that vaguely sounded like an approval.

"You're the only medic I know who does massages with chakra," he mumbled minutes later, refraining from moaning in shameful embarrassment and contentment.

"That's 'cause nobody's as awesome as me," she joked just as a certain senbon-sucking man rounded the corner and called out to them loudly.

"Hey! That looks damn good! You gonna let me in on that?"

Two heads turned in his direction.

"What? That _does_ look good!" he defended himself with a shrug.

The pinkette laughed heartily and called him over with a warning to get that senbon out of his mouth unless he was willing to risk it falling on sensitive parts of his anatomy.

Apparently, having two jounin with her nearly dozing because of the best massage they'd ever had was the right way to attract attention. Apart from civilians who gave her weird looks, ninja stopped running on their rooftops and observed her for long moments until one jumped down and asked her somewhat shyly if she would be willing to give him a massage too.

Half-asleep as they were, Gai and Genma didn't argue much when Sakura's skilled hands strayed from their bodies and fell on others. Unsurprisingly, moments later, a new ninja joined them in a similar state with a "Kami, she's good" that made them nod lazily and agree in slurred voices.

She spent the rest of the day giving massages to the line of ninja that kept growing in front of her.

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Forgot this last chapter, but Jiraiya calls Tsunade Tsunade-hime, which means "Princess Tsunade". Also, the various incidents with Sakura healing people isn't just for the sake of making chapters longer. I do have a plan, which you may see through if you pay close attention to the foreshadowing I put here and there. For now, simply enjoy the fruits of my labor while I flop down on my bed and sleep till tomorrow. Ja ne!


	13. Shogi

I know this chapter isn't long, but this is all I have enough time to write before this weekend, so enjoy. I'm finally free (God bless winter vacations) so I'll probably be able to post another chapter next week. Good luck for those of you who aren't on vacation yet, hope this makes you last until then! By the way, I apparently enticed quite a few of you with my last scene of Sakura giving massages to people. Originally, I just wanted to put Gai and Sakura's reunion, but it turned out this way in the end. I'm glad it did, ne? Thanks for the reviews, they gave me enough energy to write this! I love you guys!

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There were few things in life that could make Sakura feel like she was in her time in this one. Yet seeing Naruto and Sasuke fight to win against the other was like a slap in the face. She had seen them fight so many times over stupid and unimportant things that she had lost count. However, one thing they had never fought over was her.

"Sakura-nee-san is _my_ nee-san!" exclaimed a pouting blonde.

"Get away from _my_ nee-san," answered little Sasuke in clipped tones, eyes darker than ever.

Sakura sighed, feeling a mix of affection and mild annoyance swirl inside her at their childish actions. No one else had ever managed to make her feel this way. How had they come to this? Ah, right. She had made the mistake of saying she needed to buy something to keep her patients entertained when they were not well enough to leave yet but bored out of their mind, and Mikoto had suggested she take her sons with her to carry her bags for her. Jiraiya had disappeared, presumably to spy on women, and since the older Uchiha woman could not go with her as she had to attend a meeting with her husband, she could not go with her on her errand. Both sons had not protested, especially since they knew how scary their mother could be when things didn't go her way. Besides, they quite liked the young girl. However, on their way, they had crossed paths with a certain Uzumaki. Thus the arguing that ensued.

Itachi remained silent, inwardly sighing at his brother's childishness. He was fortunately saved by Sakura who whispered in his ear, "The store's just up ahead. Let's go while they fight it out." With a secretive smile, she released his sleeve and tiptoed around the two children. He did the same, steps silent and secretive, and followed her in the store, closing the door quietly behind him. Through the windows, he could see the two kids still arguing. Really, his brother could be such a child at times.

Already, Sakura was looking at games, wondering what she could buy that would keep grown-up ninja entertained for long hours of rehabilitation and rest. As it was, she was lightly dragging her fingers across a shogi board when a lazy voice sounded next to her.

"That board looks nice, but the one at its right is sturdier."

"Really? Thanks," she said with a smile. "Oh, but am I in your way? Were you looking for shogi boards yourself?"

"Hn. For my son. Troublesome."

Kami-sama. That general attitude…It positively screamed Nara. And one whose son liked shogi? It _had _ to be Shikamaru's father.

"Actually, I'm looking for a board for my patients. I don't have much money, so one board is all I can afford. I hope it will keep them occupied while they recover."

The Nara's attitude seemed to change. He turned fully toward her and observed her with an interested glint in his eyes.

"Are you any good at shogi, sensei?"

"Well, I like to think I'm good, but it's been a long time since I've played."

The speculative gleam in his eyes became brighter; it was fortunate that Sakura couldn't see it or she probably would have turned tail and run. As it was, she only wondered how he knew that she was a medic. She hadn't thought her reputation had spread so fast that she would be recognized on sight away from her home.

"Play a game with me and I'll pay for the board."

_That_ she hadn't expected. Nor had Itachi. His eyes widened fractionally. Apparently, without even trying, the young medic had managed to grab the interest of two of the most important Clan Heads in Konoha.

-:-

"Anata, dinner is getting cold."

Some time ago, Shikamaru's mother had lit a lantern above their head so they could continue to play on the veranda even though it was getting dark out. They hadn't looked up from their game since then.

"Troublesome," muttered Shikaku in a way eerily reminiscent of his son.

"Hmmhm," agreed Sakura. "However, you are going to win in 19 moves, so we can cut it short and spare me embarrassment if we go in, ne?"

Shikaku nodded slowly, getting up and extending a hand to her. As he pulled her to her feet, he murmured that she was a worthy opponent and added that whenever she came to visit in Konoha, she could stop by for a game or two with him.

And then they sat down at the table and Shikaku looked at Shikamaru with a distrusting gaze, not liking the look in his son's eyes as he looked at his guest. As soon as the kid opened his mouth, he drawled a lazy but firm "Forget about it. She's _my_ shogi partner" to which Shikamaru muttered a "Troublesome" and caused the two females to chuckle lightly, though the adult one scolded her husband for wanting to monopolize Sakura.

"I'm not a genius at shogi," said Sakura, "but if you're willing to bear with me, I can play with the two of you whenever I come by Konoha. I'm sure I'll have enough time to play at least one game with both of you."

Shikaku took a sip of his tea and murmured a "That would be acceptable" that made Shikamaru smile and proclaim that after they finished eating, they would play a game with his new board.

-:-

"Were you out at a bar? It's the middle of the night!"

Jiraiya sounded worried, but Sakura still looked unimpressed.

"Ne, jiji, what are you thinking about such a cute child as me? Out at a bar? At _my_ age?"

Of course, her innocent act didn't fool anyone, and both of them knew it.

"No matter how humiliating it is, we all know that you could drink me under the table any day. And heaven knows how you managed to make all the bouncers in Konoha accept you when you enter a bar."

"Sorry, sorry, I know you were worried and it's kinda sweet, but I was only playing a game of shogi."

More than skeptical, the Sannin looked astonished.

"Shogi? At this time of night?"

"Yeah…" said Sakura, embarrassed. "I kinda got caught up in the game."

"You…got caught up…in the game…" repeated Jiraiya slowly, sounding unbelieving.

"Hey, I tend to get serious when my opponent is good."

"Who the hell was good enough at shogi that you spent half the night playing against them?"

"Actually, until dinner time, it was Nara Shikaku, but then, his son, Shikamaru, cornered me after we ate. So…yeah. There you have it."

She flopped down on the couch, face first, and mumbled something along the lines of "Sleep…I'm so tired…" that made the Sannin shake his head and mutter that she would not sleep well on the couch. He took her in his arms, mentally reflecting that she was much lighter than the women he was used to taking in his arms. He walked to the bedroom and drew the covers back with one hand before carefully putting her down and tucking her gently. He was getting soft. That was official.

-:-

"Food…"

The groan sounded like a last request before agony, which made Sakura roll her eyes mentally.

"Get up, you big oaf! Breakfast's ready!"

Jiraiya trudged in the kitchen minutes later, hair in disarray, and sat down sleepily, scratching his stomach with a yawn. He seemed to revive after a few bites and tore heartily through his meal, mentally praising Sakura's cooking skills.

"You know, I had to go down to the market to buy ingredients, 'cause I don't know how often you cook, but there was nothing edible in your fridge," remarked Sakura smartly as she handed him another service of rice.

"Hm. Well, even though I have an apartment, I'm not here often. Most of the time, I'm travelling, so I don't keep much here," replied Jiraiya apologetically.

"Don't worry about it. In exchange, come here so I can brush that bird's nest you call hair. And no whining."

Gulping, Jiraiya prepared himself for the worse, but Sakura was surprisingly gentle. Her sender fingers coursed through his long mane of hair slowly, prying every knot apart before brushing the hair until it was free of all tangles and smoother than it had ever been.

"I know you're not a girl, but if you have long hair, you should take care of it," she chided him in a motherly way.

"You know, it astounds me that you take such good and gentle care of my hair when you positively yank on yours every morning," remarked the white-haired man.

Sakura couldn't help blushing.

"I didn't always have long hair. Until recently, I cut it short to not have it in my way, but since I lost my sight, I decided to let it grow again. When I was younger, I was more concentrated on style and looks than anything else, which was probably due partly to my environment and then I realized I had to be strong by myself and long hair was just a liability. Maybe I should just cut it again."

"Don't. It suits you. Why don't you just tie it into a ponytail or something? Then it wouldn't be in your way anymore, right?"

Sakura shrugged, murmuring that she would think about it. In the past, ponytails had been Ino's trademark, so she had never wore one by respect for her. However, now she had no reason not to wear one. She could do just about anything now. Ino didn't know her here. Nobody did. Not really.

She still had the brush in her hands when Itachi stopped by to ask her to heal his injuries after his training session. Jiraiya made himself conspicuously scarce as the young boy explained that he was training on his own but didn't want his family to know.

"Can you heal me so no one is able to tell I've been training alone? And not tell my family?" he finished with.

"Sure," agreed Sakura with a soft smile. She understood perfectly his need to not feel constrained by his family's expectations. Had he been the same in her original timeline?

She had watched him spar, entranced by his movements, and hadn't moved an inch despite the flying weapons and dangerous jutsu, so fascinated was she by his lithe form. She had almost forgotten to eat the peach she had brought as a snack and hadn't noticed when the shadow of the tree she was sitting against had moved until the sun had glared in her face, reminding her that time had passed by rapidly.

In the end, she didn't know how they had ended up that way, but after healing the bruises he had managed to get after battling a few shadow clones of himself, she had brushed his long hair to untangle it. He had lain down with his head in her lap as she had run her fingers through his silky hair and, feeling completely at ease, had dozed off lightly, knowing that she would wake him up if necessary.

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Yeah! Another chapter! And they're getting closer and closer! Next chapter: Tsunade confronts Sakura! Wait for it!

Anata is, among other meanings, a way to refer to your husband and shogi is an intellectual game that resembles chess.


	14. Medics of All Sizes

No Itachi here, but Tsunade does make an appearance. And things progress on Sakura's side! Now, I've been asked if Sakura can see or not. With Jiraiya's technique, she can sense the energy around her, but with no eyes, she can't see. The technique allows her to move around daily, but she still can't see colors, for example. Also, anata does mean "you" in Japanese, but wives, when they refer to their husbands, can use either that word or their function in the family, i.e. "otou-san" (father). Now, enjoy this new chapter. By the way, if anyone wants to make fanart for this story, go right ahead! Just tell me so I can put the link on my profile!

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People who envied Clan Heads just didn't know how boring the numerous meetings they had to attend were. Some of them were instructive and necessary, but in his opinion, the village Elders were way too suspicious about everything and those meetings of theirs were usually about trivial things that didn't need his approval.

Of course, being in his position, Uchiha Fugaku couldn't express his boredom openly, so he settled for showing his disinterest on his face while refraining from sighing. Next to him, Hyuugi Hiashi did the same. Apparently, he didn't appreciate it either when the very people who had arranged for the meeting didn't even bother to show up on time.

"How long do they plan on keeping us waiting?" he grumbled under his breath. "I have better things to do than wait for them to expose their nonsensical ideas again."

"Are you that desperate to ingratiate yourself to that young pink-haired doctor?" remarked Hiashi snidely.

"I happen to _like_ that young and talented girl. Rare are those who can impress me favorably. She is leaving today and I'd like to be able to see her off like the rest of my family, if you don't mind. Now _she's_ one subject I'm glad we don't have in common."

Uchiha and Hyuuga really didn't get along and for once, Fugaku was happy about the fact. He had no intention of sharing the sweet girl he had found with his obnoxious fellow Clan Head.

Hyuuga Hiashi looked surprised at the vehemence of the Uchiha patriarch. Then he got suspicious. Did the girl have some kind of secret medical jutsu that gave ninja some kind of advantage in battle? Something that would make Uchiha Fugaku want to keep her secret instead of flaunting her like he usually would? He had to see her for himself.

-:-

"I'm so sorry, my husband is caught up in a meeting and I don't know when he'll be back," said Mikoto, looking truly sorry.

"I understand, Mikoto-san," said Sakura, waving off her concern with a reassuring smile. "However, I really do have to go. I can't get away from my duties for too long and I left some plants decanting when I came that should be ready by now. I'll come back anyway, or you guys can come and visit me, too. And now that I've got a hawk, we can send one another letters, ne? Um…Jiji isn't coming back with me. He's staying for a few days before going back to travelling in search for inspiration. If you could warn me of anything mortifying he does while he's here, it would save me much trouble later on."

Mikoto laughed, shaking her head. "I understand how being warned would help. I'll do my best."

"Thank you, Mikoto-san. Bye, boys," she said to the woman's sons, hugging the younger one and shaking the older one's hand firmly. To the side, the Nara males muttered identical "Troublesome", unhappy at losing their shogi partner. She smiled at them, promising that she'd be back, before turning to the man pretending to be her father.

"Be a good boy, jiji, ne?" she joked with a bright smile.

"Stop that cheek and get going, will ya?" he retorted with an amused smirk.

"Aye aye, jiji!" saluted the child. With a flow of chakra through her tattoo, she disappeared, only to reappear a moment later in her cave.

_Home sweet home, it seems._

Two hawks swooped down on her, one she recognized as Konoha, and the other one she didn't know. However, it waited patiently on her shoulder as she read the message it had for her.

"Oh, so apparently, you are here to stay, huh? Welcome to the family, Kumo."

The hawk screeched and flew off, presumably to find some vermin to eat.

"Aren't you happy, Konoha? You've got some company now," murmured Sakura, stroking the bird's head. It answered with a soft chirp and nestled closer to her, bringing a soft smile to the girl's face.

-:-

Sakura had traded her now usual kimono for her old skin dress to do some labor. She had come to the conclusion that she would have to buy a house if she wanted to keep healing the ninja who came her way. Unfortunately, she didn't have enough money to do that and she didn't want to borrow money that she wouldn't be able to pay back. So she would have to build it on her own. After all, darkness was all good for sleeping, but light was better for recuperating after getting bad injuries. She didn't know how the house would turn out, but she had to try. She was thus sweeping her bangs aside with an annoyed gesture when she felt an awfully familiar chakra signature head in her direction.

_That's not good. That's not good at all!_

Moments later, moments that passed way too fast for Sakura's taste, her old mentor jumped down next to her and took a seat on a tree stump.

"Hm…Awfully young, aren't you? When I heard that old pervert of an ex-teammate of mine got interested in a girl, I expected someone older than you, to be frank."

_Act natural, don't let her see how much you're shaken. You're a ninja, girl, act like it!_

"You must be Tsunade-sama, then. I'm sorry, but the pervert didn't come back with me. He's back in Konoha, if you're looking for him."

The busty blonde shook her head, observing the young girl with shrewd eyes.

"Actually, I'm here to see _you_, Sakura-sensei," she said, looking intently at the child.

Dread pooled in the time traveler's stomach. That could not be good.

"Then what can I do for you, Tsunade-sama?" she asked in her best detached tone.

"Well, it seems we are alike in shocking ways, so I could not wait to meet such an interesting girl. I left my apprentice in an inn and came straight to you, so impatient was I to see you. Apparently, you have excellent skills in medicine and extreme strength. Strength that resembles mine thoroughly. However, I've never taught you. My question, thus, is: How did you acquire such strength?"

The best lies have a foundation in truth. She had long since learned that fact from her sensei. Now she could only hope to deceive the older woman.

"When I was younger, my mother worked in a casino and from time to time, I would sneak in and observe the bright world that she was immersed in. On one such day, I saw you destroy the casino with your bare hands and it impressed me so much that I tried to replicate the glow that had surrounded your hands at that time, at first without much success, I'll admit, and many burns to the hands. Eventually, though, through trial and error, I managed to replicate it."

For the longest moment, Tsunade didn't say anything, and Sakura began to fret even more than she had previously. Internally, of course. It would not do to show the Sannin how nervous she was. She knew that Tsunade had a propensity for violence when drunk, and losing money on top of that would have exacerbated the situation. She had heard stories of the woman destroying bars and such, so she supposed it was not too far-fetched to imagine her destroying a casino. Now if only she would accept the story, all would be good.

"So you really are a child genius," murmured Tsunade after a long time. "To be able to copy it after seeing it only once…That's amazing…However, with talent such as yours, it surprises me that you haven't healed your own eyes."

No matter how many times she heard those words, they hurt just as much as the first. Without a word, she undid the knot on her blindfold and let it flutter to the ground. Her empty eye sockets looked straight at the Sannin and pierced her heart painfully.

"Oh," murmured the blonde, disconcerted. "I…see…"

"Don't feel bad, please, Tsunade-sama. Though I can't see anymore, I can sense the energy around me, thanks to jiji–Jiraiya-otou-san. He said I wouldn't have had half as good a result if I hadn't been completely in tune with my chakra and had perfect chakra control. That reflects on my ability to sense energy, apparently. I'm still perfecting it, but I can get by at the moment. You don't have to pity me. Life is good to me."

"Well, at least that perverted old man was good for something," smiled Tsunade. "Could you show me that strength of yours?"

And so Sakura began to chop wood with her bare hands.

-:-

Tsunade didn't stay long, fortunately for Sakura's heart. Seeing the woman who had died in her time had shaken her more than any of the others of her past. The woman had been like a mother to her in her time, but she would never again be, even though they had parted in amicable terms. The older woman had been quite interested in what she was trying to do, even though she didn't believe it would work. Saving people indiscriminately was not going to do much, for the ninja would simply kill themselves another day.

In the end, Sakura was left alone, feeling slightly disheartened.

_I'll make it work! It has to!_

She also didn't know that she would soon get hawks from all of the major hidden villages once they learned that two of them had already made sure they could get in contact with her and that she would receive the visit of her first apprentice.

-:-

Within few days, a group of hawks invaded her cave, coming from all corners of the world she knew. A few of them stated that she was welcome to practice her art in their village, but most of them knew that she didn't want to leave her cave and only enjoined a pass that would allow her to enter the villages easily.

The hawks were either hunting or watching her build her house, some of them preening lazily, when she was once again interrupted. However, the young man who appeared before her, though sporting a mop of blond hair, was quite younger than the last blonde who had stepped foot in this place.

"Please make me your apprentice!" blurted out the young man as soon as Sakura swiveled to look at him, a heavy log on her left shoulder.

"Eh?" she asked without much conviction, too surprised for lengthier words.

"Oh, sorry. I'm Ishika Tohru, chuunin medic from Kumogakure. Recently, you have healed some of my comrades brilliantly. They have related your prowess to me. _Please_ teach me!"

"You know, I don't have much here. I don't make money from healing people and I have a policy to never ask a person's name or affiliation in order not to compromise their secrecy and to make sure people don't attack one another in my home. And I live in a cave. Lastly, don't expect me to teach you about poisons or using medical skills on a battlefield. If you can abide by these rules, I'll accept you as my apprentice."

The young man agreed enthusiastically, sounding like he was ready to do just about anything to get her to agree. At least the man must be quite interested in learning about medicine if he was willing to be put to shame and ridiculed by people for having a master as young as her.

Looks like she had traded one pervert for a nut. Things could be worse.

"Well, then, your first duty as my apprentice will be to help me build this house. Get to work, we have trees to chop down and logs to place together if we want this house to look like a house and not just a mass of wood and rocks."

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I'm on a roll, people! I have so many ideas for this story! However, this is probably my last update until next year for obvious reasons.


	15. Fire

Hello everybody, and welcome to yet another chapter of The Blind and the Unseeing! This chapter is specially dedicated to Shining Through who took the time and energy to reread my whole story and write an extra nice review for each chapter. My ego fares very well thanks to you! And now, let's see what Itachi's plotting…

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Itachi closed his eyes, falling backward on his bed. His mind was not on the people whose voices he could hear but rather on a certain pink-haired girl, and not the one who was stalking his younger brother. Among his family, it seemed that no one shared his inner desire for peace. They all liked to fight to some degree and, more importantly, they all craved power. This was not a trait he shared, nor did he like it. Power bred ambition, and ambition bred violence as conflicts were bound to arise between ambitious people. That was exactly the kind of things that started wars. Sakura-sensei, in fact, seemed to attract power and powerful people, but she did not seem to be willing to deal in politics. More than that, she seemed to avoid being placed in a position where she'd have to choose a side. She was neutral. He liked neutral. Neutrality was natural. Nature didn't choose sides, after all. And neutrality didn't bring about conflicts.

He liked the girl. She, like him, seemed to crave peace and could handle a conversation—and arguments—with him easily, something that still amazed him. And she had a passion for learning, just as he did. He couldn't count the number of books and scrolls he had seen her pour over during her short time in Konoha. He had had fun, dare he say it, discussing theories with her in the garden of his home. Those were moments when he could relax, for among all the people around him, not a single one knew him. No one understood him. Yet he felt that Sakura, if she didn't exactly understood him, had the capacity to do so, if only she had a chance. And a chance she would get, he would make sure of it.

He wanted to see more of her. However, his missions out of the village didn't usually end with people being hurt, as his teammates and he were genin and thus had easy missions without too much danger involved. Visits to the young doctor were close to none, which annoyed him. Letters could only convey so much. And he was not about to let his teammates get injured solely for the sake of seeing the pink-haired girl. He had to find a way to see her. And he would.

He just had to make chuunin so he could go on more difficult missions, ones that would get him further away from Konoha so he would get a chance to stop by the diminutive doctor's place.

A rare smile lifted the corners of his mouth up as he rolled on his side and looked out the window at the full moon. In the darkness of his room, he had finally found some light.

-:-

Ishika Tohru wondered at times why the girl he had decided to study under had decided to establish her medical practice in such a backwater place. She had lived in a _cave_, after all. A cave, of all things! It seemed like she had only recently decided to build a house, and not for herself. It was only her patients' interests that had pushed her to do so.

"Ishika-san! We need rice paper. I'm going to go down to the village and ask for information on who I can buy some from."

He turned around and came face to face with the very person he had been thinking about.

"Do you want me to come with you, sensei?" he asked, putting down the saw he had been using.

"Iie, please stay here in case someone comes looking for me. I shouldn't be long."

He stomped down on his urge to see her off, having been proven to that she was fully capable of handling herself, and merely nodded. Her ability to "see" did creep him out slightly, but her knowledge of medical jutsu and anatomy was greater than anyone else he knew.

Turned out Sakura was right and someone did come for her during her absence. Someone he _really_ wished wouldn't have. Seemed like people who looked like defenseless blind people but could move around just as well as any normal person were more abundant than he thought.

-:-

Sakura's visit to the village turned out to be longer than she had thought it would be. She hadn't been there in some time and the villagers were all happy to see her and eager to have news from her. The old woman who knew everything that happened in the village had particularly been happy to see her and had urged her to sit with her and tell her all about her life ever since the last time they had seen each other, which the girl had done, omitting only what she knew she couldn't tell her for secrecy or privacy purposes. She stayed longer than she would have thought, but her talk with the old woman had been useful, for she had promised to send her grandson to the nearby town to get the sheets of rice paper. Money had exchanged hands and, with a final hug, the child had left the peaceful village to go back to her cave.

-:-

"What. The. Hell."

Tohru winced inwardly. Sakura-sensei sounded more irritated than he had ever seen her and her usual peaceful countenance had turned into that of a fury. He had never thought he could associate pink with anger, but now he saw the passion behind the calm façade, like still water that was suddenly coming to life in an angry tsunami.

"You aren't hurt, you didn't come here to learn medicine from me, you didn't come to hurt me, you didn't come on a mission from the Hokage," listed off Sakura, counting each point on her fingers. "Let me guess, and do tell me if I'm wrong. You Hyuuga heard from me and were curious as to why the Uchiha would associate with me. I'm no pawn and if you're just looking for an edge against the Uchiha, you can fuck off right here and now. I won't get into your political mindfuck. Now scram before I shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be able to taste leather."

The Hyuuga man looked like his dignity had been offended, mouth pinched and all.

"My Clan Head said that I was to stay here and observe you if you refused to meet him."

Sakura made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat and threw her hands up in the air in frustration.

"If you're gonna stay here, you are going to make yourself useful, Hyuuga. Get that hammer."

Surprisingly, the Hyuuga, after looking at the object distastefully, did just that. Tohru shook his head; nothing could surprise him anymore if it involved the young doctor.

-:-

Hyuuga Gato didn't want to be observing a child, no matter how skilled she may be at medicine. She was a prodigy in that aspect, but that wasn't what he was supposed to inspect. He had to find what made her so interesting in the eyes of the Uchiha, and he doubted it was solely her medical skills. However, the girl didn't make it easy on him and refused to cooperate. She had told him pointblank that she refused to get involved in clan politics, but that didn't stop him from trying to analyze her character.

In the end, after a few days that had miraculously seemed to flow into a week, the Hyuuga bid his farewell to the disgruntled doctor and went home to give his report to Hiashi, a report that would state that Sakura was a peace-loving talented girl, but that he could not find a reason other than her talent in medicine or relation to Jiraiya for Uchiha Fugaku to have gained an interest in her. And yet that report would only make Hiashi more interested in the enigma that was Sakura.

-:-

The first time Ishika Tohru was flabbergasted, actually out of words by the medical prowess Sakura performed in front of him was a few weeks after he had gotten her to accept him as an apprentice. A team had come, desperate for help and in a condition so dire that he immediately let his hammer and nails fall to the ground as he helped two of the teammates get inside the mostly-finished house, supporting most of the weight of the female and letting the other people trek in behind them. The only woman on that team had been in bad shape, broken and bloody, but what had horrified him more had been that the reason she smelled so strongly of burned flesh was that her entire upper body had been burned terribly.

"Sensei! I need your help NOW!" he yelled as loud as he could, making the hawks squawk in protest and flap their wings indignantly.

Within seconds, the little girl appeared at his side and took over efficiently, sounding like an experienced surgeon.

"Ishika-san, take care of the others, I'm taking the woman. Their injuries aren't that serious, you should be fine," she barked, single-handedly carrying the woman to one of the only rooms that she had installed a bed in.

"What about you, sensei?" asked Tohru, urged on by the anxious gazes of the woman's teammates. "Are you going to be alright alone?"

"Let me handle this, just come to me once you've finished with the others," said the doctor firmly, her tone brooking no argument.

In her arms, the woman whimpered pitifully; Sakura shushed her gently, closing the door behind her, leaving him to do as she had ordered him to.

Behind the door, Sakura sighed and deposited the woman on the bed, disregarding the way the mattress became crimson and sticky with blood.

"Don't worry, sweetie, I've got you," she murmured, sending a flow of chakra into the woman's brain to ease her transition into sleep and spare her the pain her state brought her.

First things first, she had to stabilize the woman. If she had to guess, she would say the woman had gotten fried by a katon jutsu during a battle. Unfortunately, the jutsu had not been the only thing to inflict damage on her.

"Well, looks like I'll have to patch up those internal organs of you first, lest you bleed to death all over my furniture, and then coming here would have been for naught, ne?" she asked rhetorically to her unconscious patient.

A green glow enclosed her hands as she set to work, a serious frown on her face as she concentrated wholly on her patient. Life ceased to exist outside of the room.

-:-

Tohru, now accompanied by the healed ninja, crept close to the door separating all of them from his sensei and her patient, all of them edgy and tiptoeing. No sound came from the room; was that a good or a bad thing? None of them knew for sure.

"Sensei?"

No answer.

"Sensei, I'm coming in," warned Tohru, only to get more silence as an answer.

The door slowly slid open and revealed Sakura, in a state of intense concentration, sweat pearling on her brow. She didn't even acknowledge them as they entered, remaining focused solely on her patient even as they crowded around her.

Tohru approached her after calling her a last time without getting any answer and put his hand on her shoulder. Somehow, and he didn't know how that happened, he found himself on his back, a kunai at his throat the very next moment, and he had no idea what had happened in the meantime. Wide eyes trained on the doctor, astonished at her actions and, most of all, that _she_ had taken them in the first place. She had reacted exactly like a seasoned shinobi who had been in the Third War would have.

"Sen…sei?" asked Tohru, gulping nervously.

"Sorry, sorry, Ishika-san," murmured Sakura, getting up and making the kunai disappear somewhere in the folds of her clothes in an instant. "I was too concentrated on kunoichi-san here. You surprised me. Oh, looks like you're done with these guys. Do you want to accompany me in the healing of this woman? You may learn a lot, I think."

Before he could answer, one of the woman's teammates cut in, "Is she alright? Will she be fine?"

"Man, you smell like blood. All of you do, in fact. Clean your clothes in the river; Ishika-san, get your butt up here and help me grow her skin back."

The group of men moved with last glances at the woman but did as they were told. They had been told that the little doctor was strange but highly competent; for now, they would trust in her and do as they were told. For now.

"But sensei, I don't know how to do that! I've never treated burns as extensive as those before!"

"No time like the present to learn, Ishika-san! Let me explain to you what I'm going to do. I already mended her torn muscles, but it's easier to mend than create. Fortunately, we have some material to work from. We're going to accelerate the growth of skin cells, but since the new cells would replace the old ones, we'll have to move the new cells to parts of her body on which the derma has disappeared. Now, concentrate hard on your chakra, you must have perfect—or nearly perfect—control in order to make the cells multiply. Too much chakra and the cells would burst, too little and it will do little more than excite them."

Jaw on the floor, Tohru could only look as the doctor proceeded to do something he _knew_ few people had the ability to do. Still, he had to try, didn't he? Or else what was he here for?

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Well, this is it for now. I hope you enjoyed! I can't believe this is already the fifteenth chapter of this story! And if you were wondering, I do have an idea where this is going, it isn't just moments in Sakura's life without any meaning except fun (for me, at least).


	16. Gifts and Vacations

Alright, so for those of you who might have wondered why the hell I named my last chapter "Fire", here's the reason : Fire represents passion, anger, hate and love, which you can all find in the chapter. At the beginning, Itachi, who is in Fire Country O.o is thinking about Sakura who is a very fiery person, in my eyes at least, and we later on see her be just her fiery self. I think it's reason enough to title that chapter "Fire", but if you remember, our favorite medic healed a woman who was burned by what? … Congratulations to those of you who yelled "Fire!" at your computer. I'll stop my rambling now and let you read this new chapter. Enjoy.

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Kunai, shuriken, exploding tags, more kunai, oooh, was that a set of senbon? Kunai, kunai, kunai, ninja wire…

Itachi sighed heavily—mentally, of course—and continued opening his birthday presents. As if he didn't get the message already. Yeah, he was a ninja, their precious heir. Yeah, he was a prodigy. Yeah, he felt every single ounce of pressure they put on him. Yeah, they were annoying. Oh, sure, he would absolutely _love_ to discuss more annoying clan politics.

From across the room, Mikoto looked at her oldest son. Even surrounded by numerous members of their family, he looked totally alone and, to her trained eyes, more than a little annoyed and completely bored. What could she do? Using some pretext to get him to follow her to the garden, she led him to the veranda and gently coaxed him to sit down next to her.

"You don't seem truly happy, Itachi-kun. Was there something in particular you wanted for your birthday? Or somebody you wanted to see? Anything? Talk to me, my precious little love!" she pleaded, putting her hands on his face to force their eyes to maintain their gaze.

Itachi observed his mother for the longest time and cautiously murmured: "…Anything, okaa-san?"

Relieved, the Uchiha Clan Head's wife eagerly agreed to grant him anything he wanted.

-:-

"Eto…Sakura-sensei…There's someone to see you…" murmured Tohru apprehensively, tiptoeing into the room carefully. He had no wish to find himself face to face with the pointy end of her kunai once again. Thus the caution.

"I'm busy, Ishika-san. Regrowing skin isn't a piece of cake, but the mess her face is really doesn't make it any easier. It's a pain in the ass to keep from making it look ugly. Tell me you're here for a life-saving reason."

_Not good, not good, not good!_

Her tone was snappish and harsh; she was stressed and in a bad mood.

"Ano…It's someone quite important—two of them, in fact, and it would be bad to upset them…" he said, trailing off uncertainly.

The child swore and let the green glow on her hands recede to nothing.

"Forgive me, kunoichi-san," she said, fetching her bandages and a jar of unguent from the bedside table, "but it seems I'm needed at the moment. Ishika-san, tell those guests of mine I'll be by in no time. I just need to apply cream on those burns so the bandages don't stick to the wounds and rip the new skin off when I take them off to continue the treatment. Now shoo, I need space. And quiet."

Within minutes, she was done with her self-appointed assignment and, with a last apology to her patient, she left the room, closing behind her the door that her assistant had left open. She grumbled that she would have to kick his ass some more to make him remember to close doors all the way to the "living room". She couldn't have her patients' confidentiality be jeopardized just because someone forgot to close a door. She had to get in touch with Jiraiya so he could put seals in every room to make them soundproof. Village secrets would _not_ be revealed in her home; Kami help whoever tried to commit a vendetta here.

Lost in her thoughts, she came faster than she would have thought to the room she was planning on having people rest in as soon as it was finished.

_Bottom up, girl! Smile, smile, paste a smile on your face!...Fuck it._

She opened the door, fully prepared to act even snarkier than usual, and stopped short as she realized just who had been waiting for her.

"Good morning to you, Sakura-sensei."

"Uchiha-sama! Itachi-san! I…What are you both doing here?"

The Uchiha patriarch stood up gracefully—with a grace that no ninja not coming from a clan could ever hope to emulate—and smiled briefly, a truly rare feat.

"May we speak privately for a moment, sensei?" he asked without preamble, letting her know that what he had to say was for her ears only.

"Of course," she agreed, nodding. "Please excuse us, Itachi-san. This way, Uchiha-sama."

This time, she led the way to the waterfall, jumped off the cliff, and landed on the river at the bottom. The sound of the falling water would assure them some privacy. Not a moment later, the man landed next to her.

"What is it, Uchiha-sama?" asked the doctor immediately, trying not to infuse her voice with the worry she felt.

"My son recently turned nine and asked for a vacation as his birthday gift."

Clean, simple and to the point. However, that didn't answer her most important question.

"Eto…Good for you, but what exactly does that have to do with me?" she asked slowly. She failed to see where she came in the equation.

"He asked for a vacation _here_."

"Ex_cuse_ me?"

She could not believe her ears. Maybe she was having auditory hallucinations. Yet…It had been a long time since she'd had a blow to the head.

"My son wants to spend a week here, sensei. I would not refuse him."

Sakura stayed silent for a long moment. There was something he wasn't telling her. Fugaku was always impassive, but that last sentence he had said was not as emotion-free as usual. There was something fishy here.

"There is something else, isn't there?" she asked.

"He's growing apart from us, sensei, and none of us know why."

Sakura shook her head, unbelieving. Was it that stupid?

"Ano…I know you don't need me to say it, but kids tend to grow up and away from their parents, Uchiha-sama," she enunciated slowly.

Fugaku shook his head negatively.

"It's more than that, sensei. He's different. No one understands how he thinks. My wife is worried. Please. Help us."

"So you want me to use that week to find out what is wrong with him?" asked Sakura, just to make sure they were on the same wavelength.

"Please, sensei. Consider it as a favor to the Uchiha Clan if you must, but please help him."

-:-

Uchiha Itachi was, by nature, a silent person. He liked peace and quiet. Still, he had to wonder how he had managed to like a person who tended to make noise instead of avoiding it.

"Ishika-san! Get your teenage butt in here!"

There came the medic once again.

"I'll be with you in a second, Itachi-san," she told him through the open door to her patient's room.

He nodded to the blond assistant as he came rushing by with rolls of bandages piled high in his arms, smirking slightly.

As soon as the young man entered, muttering that he wasn't a teenager anymore, the medic walked out, closing the door behind her, and came to him.

"Let's get out of the house, Itachi-san. There's nothing more I can do today, anyway."

As they strolled out of the house, nodding in passing at the three ninja who were working on the roof, Itachi asked her: "It seems that that kunoichi has been giving you trouble. You seemed exhausted yesterday when you left her room, and today, too. What kind of work are you doing on her?"

Sakura sighed, shuffling her feet on the river shore.

"Well, I need to reconstruct her face, since she's been badly burned. However, I can't do it by only looking at what remains of her face; it doesn't resemble what it once was. So I have to read her DNA, which is tiring and quite difficult to achieve, and then reconstruct the muscles and tissues layer by layer. It's…arduous, to say the least. Ishika-san isn't able to do it, so I have to do it all by myself."

"Wait. You said you were able to reconstruct her face," said Itachi, halting the medic in her tracks by suddenly grabbing her arm.

"…Hai. Hai, I did."

"But then, why don't you do the same for your eyes?" he asked eagerly—for him, that was.

The young girl sat down on a boulder, smiling sadly, a smile he found he did not like on her face.

"There are some fundamental differences between that woman and me. You see, I can duplicate, but I can't create cells. There are different types of cells, you see, and each one can only become the type it was supposed to be. Meaning a skin cell will stay a skin cell and a nail cell a nail cell. Basically, since I don't have eye cells anymore, I can't recreate them. Fortunately for my patient, despite her poor state, she had some of the necessary cells left. I just have to replicate them, which, while difficult, is still doable."

"So it's really impossible, then," murmured Itachi, looking down at the girl he respected with sadness.

"Apart from transplants, you mean? I don't know. I can only try to live as best as I can and continue my research so that one day, it may help someone in my position."

-:-

There were too many men in the room, or so she felt.

"Will you please just stop whining like kids? You're ninja, damnit!"

Should she just boot them out of the kitchen? The thought was very tempting.

"But sensei, we're hungry!"

"Kami, why do I seem to attract dependant men who act like children around me?" she muttered, chopping vegetables with a vigor that would have otherwise been spent on kicking her guests' asses.

At that moment, Itachi entered the semi-finished room and murmured that if she wasn't so dependable, they wouldn't act so spoiled.

"Yeah…Maybe you're right. I think there might be something wrong with my motherly instinct," she pondered aloud, tapping her chin in thought. "Now, boys, get on your best behavior. I'm going to be gone for just a few moments to get your teammate. Behave."

There was a moment of silence as the men looked at one another, during which Sakura threw her hands in the air and left, muttering that she better not find the kitchen on fire when she came back.

For everybody but Itachi, time seemed to crawl by during the time the medic was gone.

"Everybody still alive?" she asked moments later, popping her head in. "Then meet my greatest masterpiece!"

She got out of the door frame, revealing a full-grown woman behind her. She was pretty, with straight hair and even features. Except for the pink hue of new skin on every part of her body they could see, there was nothing to indicate that she had recently been burned beyond recognition.

"Hey," she said shyly. "I'm back…"

With hoots and laughs, her three teammates rushed at her, hugging her, exclaiming, "Look at that! It's awesome! You look gorgeous! It's as though nothing happened to you in the first place!"

Itachi and Sakura stood to the side of the happy reunion.

"That's…pretty amazing, sensei," said Itachi, only to be rewarded by Sakura's brightest smile. Surprisingly, it made something stir in his chest, something alien and unfamiliar, but it did not feel like a threat, so he decided to embrace it and think about it later.

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Thanks for reading, guys! I try to make everything follow pretty much the original timeline with some exceptions, but if there's something I'm way off about, tell me, alright? 'Cause Narutopedia is good and everything, but maybe I missed something, you never know! For those of you who are reading my Rogan story, wait a bit more, the next chapter should be up pretty soon.


	17. Cuddlers

Hey, people! Welcome to my newest chapter! Read it with some hot cocoa and enjoy!

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Psychoanalysis. As a ninja, that word made her shudder. Most ninja learned pretty early on how to either a) avoid being sent to see a psychologist or b) pretend to be completely (as much as could be expected for a ninja, anyway) sane. She was fortunate she had had a Yamanaka for a best friend, really. And that she had not been the psy who had had to treat most ANBU who came back from their missions. That had to be exhausting for anybody. In fact, she clearly remembered seeing a few psychologists break down after a session with one of them. And now she had to crack the toughest nut Konoha had to offer: one Uchiha Itachi. She was fucked. Definitely fucked.

-:-

She came to, still bleary from sleep, only to refrain herself with all she had from screaming. The black eyes inches from her face got further away, blinking slowly.

"What. The. Hell?" she hissed, clutching at her sheets with tense fingers.

"You wouldn't wake up," said Itachi as though it was normal for people to wait for other people to wake up by staring at them from up close.

"Of course I wouldn't," she snapped, sitting up. "People usually _sleep_ at night, you know."

She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and ran a hand through her messy hair.

"My apologies, sensei."

"Don't worry about it. What is it?"

Itachi stayed silent for a long moment, still unsure why he had waited for her to realize he had snuck in her room, which had not taken long, but had not been immediate, probably due to her state of exhaustion.

"There is something I do not understand," he finally said.

Yawning, Sakura motioned for him to go on.

"If you do not wish for fame, why do you not swear your patients to secrecy? Someday, people are going to come looking for you and will want to force you to do things you won't want to do."

"Ah, but if I did that, I would not be able to help those people. The smiles my patient's teammates had is the best reward I can get. That kind of happiness…There's nothing comparable to that. And if I have to pay for it later, I will. But I won't be threatened so easily. I may have no powerful clan or village to back me up, but as long as I live, I will not be coerced into anything I don't want, or there will be hell to pay."

There was such certainty in her words that despite him never seeing her fight like he did his teammates, he didn't doubt for a moment that she would make good on her promise.

"Now that this very illuminating conversation happened, can we go back to sleep, Itachi-kun?" asked Sakura, yawning once more.

The young Uchiha nodded but didn't move.

Getting under her bedcovers once more, she burrowed a comfortable cocoon for herself and managed to look singularly unimpressed when she found him still there.

"That meant you go back to your room, Itachi-kun. Unless you fancy joining me, see you tomorrow."

Her eyes reflexively snapped open when the covers were lifted and a weight settled next to her.

She really didn't want to psychoanalyze this at that time of the night. _Really_ didn't want to. So she would wait until tomorrow.

Closing his eyes, still not knowing why he had laid down next to Sakura, Itachi took note that he was completely relaxed. Wondering why that was so could definitely wait until tomorrow. For now, he would put that question in his mental box reserved for all the enquiries he had about the mysterious medic.

-:-

"Damn hair. I knew I should have cut it short. It's a pain to deal with it."

Not for the first time, she wondered why she let her hair grow, since she was tempted pretty much every day to take a kunai and chop it short. Why had Ishika taken her stash from her room? Damn apprentices. She knew she shouldn't have taken him in when he had first started sweating on that first morning he had come to wake her up and she had thrown a kunai millimeters from his face. Such a fragile heart he had.

"Please, sensei, let me see."

And there came the person she had been trying to forget—err…act normal around—ever since she had woken up that morning, clutching him to her undeveloped chest. Of course, she had tensed. Of course, she had tried to forget the fact that she had been nuzzling his neck. And then there was the disturbing fact that he had acted completely normal. Like that was a usual occurrence. Completely normal. And completely disturbing.

Itachi gently pried the brush from her clenched fingers and began to untangle the numerous knots in her hair. And then he used his skilled fingers to massage her scalp. Damn the guy was good.

"Damn you're skilled. That's just sinful," she moaned, throwing her head back.

As Itachi brushed her hair, she wondered what he was going to do with the pink mess. So she just asked him outright.

"There are various ways I could deal with your hair, sensei, but since you like short hair, I assume you like the light feeling. I suppose you prefer to have your hair away from your face when you work, ne?"

Intrigued, Sakura slowly nodded, excitement thrumming in her veins. She looked forward to the result.

"So…What are you doing, exactly?" she asked, forcing herself not to bite her lip. That would be way too girly for her.

"Braids. That way, when I pull them up, it won't feel too heavy."

Braids. He was braiding her hair.

"Uchiha Itachi, where did you learn to braid hair?"

Phlegmatic as usual, Itachi didn't bat an eye as he calmly answered, "Okaa-san showed me how to do it long ago. She said that one day, I would be Clan Head and that I would cherish every moment I had with my wife, so I should learn ways to make them longer and matter as much as I could. I'm glad those lessons could be useful."

Somehow, she was not surprised to hear how Uchiha Mikoto had thought to help his son live through his marital life as a shinobi and not lose all intimacy in the process. Ninja life could be hell for couples.

Then she began to chuckle.

"I promise I won't tell anyone, Itachi-san."

In the end, she must have looked good, for when she came out of her room, Ishika looked at her for a long moment and then asked her why she didn't usually comb her hair that way.

He ended up not being able to sit down for a day. And that was only because she didn't have the heart to leave him that way for two days straight.

-:-

"You're a cuddler."

Tohru spat his miso soup out; Sakura choked on it. Itachi idly patted her on the back as she cleared her throat.

"What the—"

"You were wrapped around me all night long, sensei," continued Itachi as though it was usual for him to say such things in the middle of breakfast.

Tohru, wide-eyed, turned to look at the crimson medic.

"It's your fault! You're the one who snuck into my bed once again!" she muttered with a pout, unwilling to look at either of them.

"Sensei…"

"I don't want to talk about it. It's not my fault. Not my fault," said Sakura, waving her hands agitatedly.

Both males looked at her bemusedly as she proceeded to destroy her hairdo as she clenched her fingers in her pink strands.

Finally, she turned around, pointing at Itachi with an accusing finger.

"You. This is your fault. It has to be, since it's not mine. What were you doing in my bed?"

This time, Tohru turned to look at the Uchiha curiously.

"Your presence seems to soothe me. I found that I sleep better by your side."

And of course, she was used to Uchiha acting all mighty. If they felt something was supposed to be theirs, they took it, no questions asked.

"My bed. My home. My rules. If you want to do something, you have to ask me."

Itachi scrutinized her for a long time before nodding slowly and enunciating clearly, "Then, sensei, may I sleep with you tonight?"

She instantly became beet red and almost frosted at the mouth.

-:-

There was not much she could say about Itachi to his family. Doing so would betray the trust he had placed in her. Still, she had to say _something_ to Fugaku—or the Uchiha he had sent to get his eldest son, actually.

"You will never be able to understand Itachi-san. The spectacles you use to look at life are too different. Please relay that to Fugaku-sama."

It was clear the Uchiha itched to ask her to expand on that thought, but he had the delicacy not to ask. She was grateful, for it would have been hard to explain to him that while the Uchiha Clan thrived on power, Itachi was more interested in peace, no matter what the cost may be to achieve it.

As she looked at the two Uchiha go, she rubbed her arms, biting her lower lip harshly. Itachi, Sasuke, the Uchiha clan…what bloody politics. She could still remember vividly the look on Naruto's face when they had discovered Itachi had sacrificed his entire life for Sasuke's sake, only for the sake of peace. Destroying his entire clan because he couldn't bear to see his entire village be bathed in blood. That ideal of his was frightening in its intensity.

Still, when Itachi turned back and made her promise to write him and come visit him, she could not help but nod and hand him a small vial she had been toying with, wondering whether or not she would give it to him.

"Here. That's yours."

"What is it, sensei?" asked Itachi, paying not mind to the man who was waiting for him.

"Medical chakra. My chakra, to be precise. I trapped it in that liquid using a process I won't get into with you at this moment, but suffice to say it's concentrated. If you drink it during a mission, it should heal most internal bleeding."

"Sensei…"

Words failed him. He understood without her saying it that condensing chakra was very arduous and energy-consuming. For her to give this to him…He felt privileged.

Not knowing how to express himself, he pressed his lips to her forehead in a simple, meaningful kiss.

"Thank you."

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I really wanted to make this longer, but I think it is a good place to end this chapter, don't you?


	18. Tiger

Well…This is me at my most creative. There was so much fun in writing this chapter. We're closing in on the twentieth chapter, people! I wonder how many reviews I'll have by then…Anyway, I take the time to answer a review I got some time ago but always forgot to answer in the beginning of a chapter. So here goes. I don't like to write multiple endings because once I decide on the line I'm going to follow, I make everything fit with it and doing another ending would destroy that. And when I write a story, I decide first the pairing. Doing omakes or alternate endings with different pairings would not work for me for a normal story. I did write, however, another Naruto story in which Sakura ended up with multiple people who I hadn't decided at first, so yes, I can make Sakura into a polygamist (ne, I did so already) but it won't happen for this story.

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She needed space. A lot of space. And she needed it now. She needed to analyze her actions, Itachi's actions…anything and everything. So she turned to Tohru and announced to him, "Ishika-san, I'm going on a…pilgrimage of sorts. Be kind enough to stay here and take care of eventual patients. Send a hawk for me if you need my expertise."

He had blinked, mouth agape, and had barely managed to wave sluggishly at her before she was gone with only a cloak and a satchel full of medical thingamajigs as baggage.

She had once again surprised him. And he once again didn't know what to do. Except stay there and wonder when she would come back.

There was, after all, nothing else he could do.

-:-

Traveling was exactly what she needed. It was a great way to think and yet not think at the same time. She went far, not exactly because she especially wanted to, but because she wanted to go at some place that didn't remind her so much of everything.

Traveling was great. Except when it rained. And knowing her luck, it rained. Hard. And cold.

_Damn it, I have to find shelter._

Fortunately, her senses managed to pick up a cavity in the side of the cliff she was following. Unfortunately, she also happened to sense an incredibly weak chakra. Mentally kicking herself in the head, she veered off course, sprinting through the underbrush.

Obviously, a battle had taken place in the forest, that much was clear from the kunai lying around messily and the numerous burns on the grass. The rain had washed away the scent of the carbonized grass, but it could not wash away the signs of the battle.

She lightly stepped next to the last survivor, got down on one knee in front of him, and said lightly: "Hello there."

-:-

Half hidden by the roots of a great tree, Tachibana Toranosuke pried his swollen eyes open as a small figure stopped in front of him. He could not see if it was a friend or an enemy, for a long gray cloak covered the person from head to toe. In his vulnerable state, unable to move, he could only wait for death.

"Hello there."

Ah. That was a female, then. Such a sweet voice.

"Are you here to kill me?"

"Iie, friend. I'm here to save you. Sleep, now…"

His eyes fluttered closed and his head fell back on the ground.

The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a small cave, covered in bandages. He looked around blearily, noticing that his body was warm from the furs that covered him more than because of the fire that was burning brightly to his right. The female must have dragged him here during his time of unconsciousness. The very same female was roasting something that looked like a bear over the fire. At the pained groan he made, she turned her head in his direction and walked to him slowly.

"Don't move. You'll reopen your wounds."

"Who _are_ you?" he asked curiously as she kneeled next to him and peeled back the fur covering him.

"Just someone who took an oath to save people whenever she could," replied his benefactor, leaning over his torso. A few strands of pink hair fell from her hood, making him scrunch his eyebrows at the strange colour.

Her small hands came to rest on his buff chest and pumped cool, healing chakra into his body, easing his breathing.

"Better?" she enquired softly.

He nodded slowly and forced his right arm to lift. It strained with the tension that coursed through him at the effort, but he still managed to gently pull the hood back with the back of his hand. She didn't stop him, but carefully took his arm in his and helped him gently ease it back at his side. He gaped at her sight. Of all the things he could have expected, a blind savior was not the one he would have had in mind.

"Don't strain yourself, you're in pretty bad shape. Your left leg has gangrene."

All thoughts came to an abrupt halt in his head.

"_What?_"

He tried to sit up, but she put a firm hand on his shoulder and ordered him to stay still unless he wanted to start bleeding all over the floor again.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine," she said, uncovering his leg.

"_Fine?_ How can it be fine? You have to amputate my leg! And without my leg, I can't be a ninja anymore! I'm dead without my leg!" he exclaimed shrilly, hyperventilating.

"I'm working on making sure it doesn't happen. This will be painful, but I'll heal your leg. I promise."

Feeling too mentally tired to do anything, he just nodded, blinking tears from his eyes. His dark orbs closed as she began to destroy the diseased cells and his whole body tensed as though trying from the pain that came from within. His hands clenched, his eyes squeezed shut, and his teeth bit down harshly on his lower lip in an effort not to yell out.

-:-

The man had fallen into unconsciousness once again. Well, she supposed it was better for him. That way she could work in peace. Anyway, she'd probably have to work through the night and well into the morning to make sure every diseased cell was obliterated and replaced with a perfectly healthy one.

And that's exactly what happened. From time to time, she used a kunai to get herself a slice of the meat that was slowly cooking, but that was the only brief pauses she allowed herself.

She let the fur cover most of her patient's body when she could; the night _was_ cold, after all, and he was wearing nothing more than a fundoshi. Since it was her who had cut his clothes in order to get at his wounds more easily, maybe she should try to find him some clothes.

-:-

When Toranosuke awoke, feeling significantly better, he immediately realized he was alone. He quickly rolled over, looking for his benefactor, but she was nowhere to be found. Lifting the fur from his chest at a slight breeze that came through the entrance of the cave, he noticed that he wasn't clothed. Looking around, he could not find his clothes, but he did find a set of clothes next to what remained of the fire. As he put them on, he wondered what day it was. He vaguely remembered waking up a few times and being fed before falling back into a deep sleep. However, the images he had of the person who had taken care of him were hazy at best, making him wonder whether he had imagined everything. After all, if he told anyone he had been healed by a child, no one would believe him. He was probably delusional. Still…Who had brought him new, fresh clothes in his size?

No matter how long he waited, she did not come back.

In the end, he dressed himself in the clothes that had been left behind and helped himself to the now cold meat. As he strapped his weapons pouch to his waist, he noticed a message lying at the entrance of the cave. Curious, he let his eyes scan it quickly, only to look back at the entrance with a much more trained eye.

_So that's where my missing kunai and wire went…_he thought. No wonder the pouch had felt so light. Well, before he left, he would have to get rid of the traps, apparently. Food, shelter, protection…

Whoever that person had been, she had thought of everything. Except giving him a name he could remember her by.

-:-

The bar was crowded, but relatively quiet. It was one of those places where people met, talked business, and left just as quickly as they had come. No one stayed long or if they did, they remained inconspicuous. It was the type of place in which if someone smoked next to you and you didn't like that, you were better off living with that fact than pointing out to your neighbor that you were a non-smoker. Unless you were looking for a brawl.

"Whoa, long time no see! So you're still alive, eh?"

Toranosuke looked to the man who had just sat in front of him in his booth and smiled in surprise.

"Nope, still alive, Watanabe-san. But it was close. I got ambushed and got my ass kicked. If it hadn't been for my mysterious benefactor, I would have lost my leg at best and my life at worst."

As Watanabe gestured for a barmaid to bring them some drinks, he smirked and drawled, "Mysterious benefactor, eh? What did he look like?"

"Would you think I'm crazy if I told you it was a blind little girl with pink hair?"

Watanabe's face immediately sobered and his eyes became serious.

"Well, I don't know about benefactors, but I know of one blind pink-haired girl."

Toranosuke's head, which had turned to look at the barmaid who was coming back, suddenly snapped back to Watanabe.

"What? Tell me more."

Watanabe waited until the drinks had been put on their table before saying lazily, "She's been pretty busy, but not exactly doing what you think she was doing."

"Wait…What do you mean?"

He did not understand. What did Watanabe know that he didn't?

"She's become somewhat of a local celebrity since she arrived, that girl. She's been busy drinking everybody under the table. Made a whole lot of cash, too. 'Cause everybody bet against her in the beginning, you see. Now…Well, some people still do. I've never seen anyone so tolerant to alcohol."

"You've _seen_ her?"

"Half the people around here have seen her, man," pointed out Watanabe.

"Take me to her, Watanabe-san. Please."

"Now? The drinks just arrived!" exclaimed the other man, eyes wide. His hand remained halfway to his lips. He glanced at it sadly.

"Please, Watanabe-san! It's important!"

Grumbling, said Watanabe drank his alcohol down in one gulp and got up, moodily gesturing for Toranosuke to follow him. The two nuke-nin silently disappeared from the bar, unnoticed by the other customers.

-:-

"Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!"

Sakura smirked and traced the rim of her glass. Heh. Amateurs. She wasn't even tipsy, but her opponent was already red in the face. She had already won before she sat down.

She took the glass, drank the alcohol in one gulp, and put it upside down on the table, noting mentally that the row of empty glasses was getting longer. Maybe she should do another one instead of continuing this one. But she doubted she would have to.

Her opponent, a fat man with three chins, lifted his glass slowly, gulped down the alcohol, and put the glass down with trembling hands. He smirked, looked at her, and toppled over.

"Heh. Bring the money over!" called Sakura with a smirk as people groaned or cheered. Money exchanged hands, bringing smiles and frowns on the faces of the numerous people assembled around her.

"So I wasn't dreaming…It _was_ you."

She tensed minutely before a small smile played on her lips.

"Looks like you managed to find your way back to civilization, tiger. How's the leg?" she asked, turning around to face the man she had left miles away in a cave.

"You healed me even though I was a nuke-nin, then you left me alone to wonder whether I had dreamed the whole thing…Who are you, really?"

"Walk with me," she said, getting up from her chair. She put her money in her bag and headed straight for the door, speaking as she went. "My name is Sakura. And you are a strange man. A normal man would have let things be. Yet you searched me out. Why is that so?"

They walked down a shadowed alley, sidestepping prostitutes and drunkards as they went.

"I may be a nuke-nin, but I'm still human. I was curious. I hadn't really expected to find you, especially not so soon."

They entered a hotel and went straight to a private lounge; unsurprisingly in such a town, no one gave Sakura so much as a second glance.

Once they had sat down on faded cushioned armchairs, Sakura crossed her legs and signaled for Toranosuke to elaborate. Watanabe, who was just as curious, waited for the two to finish their conversation. Things were so much more interesting than they had been at first.

After a long moment of silence, Toranosuke ran a hand through his short hair and muttered, "I don't know, it's just…I don't know what I expected, but…I've learned that it's not good for people like me to have unpaid debts."

Sakura let her head thump against the back of her armchair.

"Forget it. You don't owe me anything."

"But…"

She halted him with a hand.

"I helped many people, but it's always been a principle of mine not to accept repayment, no matter who they may be."

"Then maybe I can…"

The child sighed and leaned forward.

"Tell you what. It appears you really want to stick to this, so I'm going to offer you a deal. Find me and I'll give you a job and we'll call it square. But only if you're willing to be a handyman."

Then, with a last smirk, she disappeared from under their very noses.

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There, a new chapter. In the next one, Sakura deals with politics. Look forward to it!

Hey, anybody noticed this chapter is longer than my usual ones? ^^


	19. Blood on the Water

Hello, dear reviewers! Hello to you too, readers! I hope this chapter satisfies all of you. Now, how many of you guessed that tiger was referring to Toranosuke? (hinthint: Tora means tiger) Don't worry, even though Itachi doesn't appear in this chapter, he certainly does in the next one!

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Sakura reappeared instantly in her cave. Smirking, she shook her head and quickly tiptoed off in search for her apprentice. She was pretty sure she could make him scream like a little girl if she came up behind him and yelled "Booh!" in his ears.

But then she felt some of the most threatening chakra she had ever encountered and gulped. This was not good. Shrugging off her uneasiness, she proceeded to walk up to her almost-finished house. She winced; despite all the work she had done on it, it would probably be destroyed by the end of the day.

The shoji door opened, revealing a tense Tohru.

"Welcome back, sensei," he murmured weakly. "You have a visitor."

"So I've noticed, Ishika-san," she replied, forcing herself to seem and act calm even as her every instinct told her to run off as soon as possible. "Get away. Go to the village. Don't come back until tomorrow."

Then, leaving the trembling blonde behind her, she walked resolutely to the living room.

"You're pinker than a baby," pointed out the man she really wanted to avoid.

"You're bluer than a dead man," she retorted, mentally whacking herself in the head for antagonizing him. She was so not getting out of this alive.

A deep chuckle resounded in her ears, startling her.

"You've got cheek, girl. I like that."

_Kami-sama, my head is still attached? I think I must have just used up all of my lifetime's worth of luck…_

She remained wary, silently waiting for him to make a move.

"Why are you here, Hoshigaki Kisame-san?" she asked, sounding more demanding than she probably should have, considering the situation she was in.

Her mind continued to chant nonstop, _I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead…_

"I heard of you. Apparently you healed a gal who had almost no skin left. You medical prowess has reached my ears. If you could heal her, you should be able to change the color of my skin."

"That's impossible."

She immediately found herself trapped by his hand against the wall. It clasped her neck firmly but not harshly enough that she couldn't talk.

"You'd better do what I asked. Who knows what I might do otherwise…" he threatened with a sharp grin.

"Nobody can do that, Hoshigaki-san. Not me, not the legendary Tsunade, not any medic! Healing skin is different from changing it! Skin constantly regenerates itself, and on top of that it's composed of different layers. I'd have to change your genetics. In every. Single. Cell. Nobody can do that. It's impossible."

After an impossibly long time, Kisame nodded and slowly released her.

"Alright, I'll believe you. But if I find out you were lying to me, I'm going to chop you into little pieces."

Wondering if that was truly the only reason he had come to see her, Sakura found her blood running cold with his next words.

"Anyway, sensei, please become Akatsuki's medic. I'm asking nicely, but I don't really intend to accept a negative answer. You understand, right?"

"I do, but I won't join you."

His grin became more pronounced if at all possible.

"I hoped you'd say that. Then I can just force you. As long as you're alive, Leader-sama shouldn't object."

Faster than she could move, he came at her, landing a harsh blow to her stomach. As her breath left her lungs, she flew through the wall, only barely managing to catch herself in the middle of her fall. She kneeled next to the river, wincing, and put a hand on her abdomen to feel for any cracked ribs.

She did not have much time, however, for the large man rushed at her once more, sword poised; she knew she couldn't afford to get hit by it. It would suck her chakra dry until she was more defenseless than a baby.

Scenarios ran through her mind so fast she only took a moment to analyze her best chances. Then she took off, resolute to get as far from the water as she could. She knew she had only a few brief instants before he caught up to her to implement her plan. She was good at hand-to-hand combat, but so was he, and with her body, he had the advantage of range. However, he wasn't that good at genjutsu, which could be turned in her favour. What else did she know? She raked her brains, trying her hardest to remember everything she could about him. And then swore under her breath; he had been described as being a bijuu without tails, so large were his chakra reserves. Her own were not nearly up to par. Had she mentioned she was screwed?

Her fingers swept through hand signs as she set up a genjutsu, hoping it would stall the nuke-nin long enough for her to attempt to lessen her disadvantage.

_Kami-sama, make this work!_ she pleaded mentally, going through a jutsu she had nevr thought she would use again. In the future, she had learned it from Ino, who had, in turn, learned it from Morino Ibiki. It was a jutsu that he frequently used on his prisoners if he thought they were hiding who they truly were. It negated any concealment whatsoever and revealed the true form of the prisoner. The effects, were, however, only temporary. Still, maybe it could give her an edge.

Her breath hitched as the jutsu's effects washed over her, forcing her to the ground as she screamed in pain, falling in a heap on the moss. Her mind was blank, a white slab, cruelly void of anything but the unstopping pain. Finally, it slowly left her trembling body, and it took her a moment in her dizzy state to wonder where she was. A hand touched her shoulder; she instinctively retaliated by infusing her kick with chakra, feeling satisfaction rush through her as she heard a loud crack, and jumped away, crouching. Her chest heaved in pain as she struggled to get used to her new height.

-:-

Kisame managed to get rid of the pesty genjutsu (clever, really, he would have continued to run in circles without getting anywhere) just in time to hear his prey scream that kind of hoarse, raw pain that couldn't leave anyone unfeeling, no matter what kind of heartless bastard they were. Frowning at the thought of someone getting in the way of his task—and, incidentally, fun—he forced his legs to run even faster and ended up crouching next to the girl within moments. Under his unbelieving eyes, she seemed to stretch, breaking through her clothes, and still she screamed her throat raw, tensing and trembling under a kind of assault he knew nothing about. His senses were stretched wide, but he could not sense any chakra other than his and hers; what kind of jutsu had she used on herself? He was so surprised that he didn't react fast enough to get out of the way of her kick. He winced as it fractured two of his ribs, but his eyes became gleeful again as he noticed the now young woman's state of undress.

"Nice rack," he couldn't help but say.

Really, she blushed so prettily. His smirk grew as he tossed her his sleeveless shirt.

"Here. Put this on, so we can fight. It wouldn't be fun if you were constantly distracted by your naked butt."

No matter how much he liked that very butt.

The girl looked suspicious, but she did relent after a moment and pulled the overly large shirt over her head. He snorted as he realized that it looked more like a dress on her, especially after she tied her obi; he did, however, like the look it gave her. It must be some male instinct, he supposed, for he could not be attracted to a child, no matter how much she looked like a woman. His blood sang in his veins in excitement. He smirked and ran at her, brandishing Samehada.

-:-

They engaged in a heavy taijutsu spar that immediately let Sakura know that despite her training every morning, she was not at a level where she could challenge him and still hope to survive. She had to put some distance between them before he skewered her. And with that sword of his, he had a much larger range than her, too. Besides, if Gai could lose to him, she definitely didn't have a chance.

She evaded a punch, barely managing to escape Samehada and another blow to suck her chakra. She already had enough cuts and bruises all over her body. And the damn nuke-nin kept smiling like he had the time of his life. The man needed to get laid.

She tried using a few genjutsu, but apparently Kisame had expected that, for he quickly got rid of them—it was enough for her to land a blow or two, but no more than that. Still, she was glad she had managed to hurt him somewhat, even if her body was her only weapon. If only she had had a chance to grab some of her weapons before being booted out of her house. Fortunately, both Tsunade and Kakashi preferred to avoid being hit than defend themselves against an attack; she had learned to do the same.

Ducking under a punch, Sakura did a cartwheel, unfortunately not managing to hit the blue man in the process, and jumped to the side as Samehada whizzed through the air to land where she had previously been. She shattered the ground beneath their feet with a fist, using his moment of surprise to get further away from him. He cursed, evading rock and debris alike as they rained down on him. She could see that he was starting to become irritated of her little evading act and thus poised herself when she saw his fingers flash through a series of hand signs.

"Suiton: Bakusui Shouha!"

Water began to erupt from his mouth, so much water there was nothing she could do to turn this at her advantage. Still, before he engulfed her in the lake he was creating, she ran to a nearby tree and uprooted it, preparing herself to surf the enormous wave with it; the less she touched that water, the better her health would fare. And the man came at her, surfing his wave gleefully.

Perched on her tree trunk, she waited until he was near before shattering the tree, sending hundreds of needle-sharp splinters at him. Landing on top of another tree, she quickly exchanged places with a log as his clone exploded in a burst of water. She was in luck; Samehada barely nicked her. Still, blood flowed freely down her chest. She tested her shoulder; the cut was deep, but she could still move somewhat normally.

She evaded a water dragon cursing mentally, and retaliated by raising a wall of earth all around him. She doubted it would stall him for long, but it bought her enough time to use a Katon jutsu to make the water evaporate.

_Heh. If you can spew water, I can spew fire! Take that, you damn shark!_

However, her mental victory dance soon came to a stop as Kisame used a much more dangerous jutsu. He was through with playing.

-:-

The giant dome of water snapped into place, trapping both he and the pinkie in it. Without fusing with Samehada, he couldn't breathe underwater, but he could hold his breath for far longer than anybody. This victory was his.

The girl's face plainly showed her surprise as he swam to her with a smirk on his face. She once more switched places with a log, but he torpedoed out of the dome to grab her by the ankle and drag her in the water once more. She flailed around, cutting herself more and more against Samehada as she did so. Ribbons upon ribbons of red streaked the water. Finally, she managed to land a chakra-laden blow to his head. Black enveloped his vision for an instant and his hands went slack. It lasted for but a moment, but it was enough for her to go for Samehada. Pain flared in his side as she wielded his own weapon to slash at him. He let go of his jutsu and they collapsed in a pile on the soppy ground. To his surprise, despite the spikes that ran through her hands, the girl didn't let go of his prized sword. Instead, she kicked him once more as Samehada returned to him. He snatched the sword back, even as he stumbled to stand.

The girl cradled her bloody and useless hands close to her chest, heaving as hard as he was. Even as soaked as she was, her blood managed to cling on her skin as it rolled down her arms in fluid rivers of crimson.

He found that he did not like it. How strange.

"Kuso, girl, did you object this much to join Akatsuki that you would render yourself useless?" he asked, aghast.

There was a stubborn set to her jaw as she answered, spitting her words through unnaturally red lip, "If you bring me to your organization, I will kill every last one of you instead of healing you; if I can't, I'll kill myself instead. I believe in peace; you think it can't be achieved without destroying the world first and bend everyone to your will. I'll commit suicide before I'd ever consider joining you!"

He had no doubt she would do it; apparently, she clung as dearly to her ideals as he did his. He could respect—maybe even admire—that. So he sheathed Samehada and nodded.

"Very well. But if you waver even once from your path, I'll come once again to take you from this place."

-:-

Sakura slumped to the ground as he disappeared without further ado.

_That's it?_ her mind asked, unbelieving. _We nearly fought to the death for _this_?_

She chuckled brokenly as her body gave up on her and darkness of another kind gripped her.

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Well, I had this coming for a long time. Enough action for you guys? I did promise there would be come pretty soon. What do you think? Not exactly the kind of politics you expected? Fear not, there is more to come! Now, I completely forgot to give you the translation for the Japanese words I used last chapter, so here goes. I hope I'm not forgetting anything.

Fundoshi: traditional Japanese underwear

Suiton: Bakusui Shouha: Water Release: Exploding Water Colliding Wave.

Katon: fire


	20. Hospitals and Recoveries

There seems to be a point that many of you didn't catch: the jutsu Sakura used was temporary. Meaning, it is not permanent and Sakura won't remain an adult. In fact, in this chapter, she has already regressed to her child state.

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Hawks screeched loudly, flying away in all directions. All except one that stayed behind, landing on a small blood-covered shoulder. Its head butted gently against a larger, human one, but received no answer. Not so much as a groan. With a last glance at the surroundings, it, too, flew away. Behind him, the girl-turned-woman-turned-girl remained still as death. Konoha headed straight for the village he had been named after. Fortunately, he did not have to go that far, for he found two of its shinobi on his way.

Swooping down, Konoha screeched loudly, agitatedly barring their way. Would they recognize him? He certainly hoped so. It would be really sad if he had a better memory than them.

"My good friend! It appears this mighty bird is trying to tell us something!"

"Nah…Really?" came the bored response.

"Come, my eternal rival! Let's follow the hawk! I shall be the first one to discover what it wants to tell us or I shall run a thousand laps around Konoha on my hands!"

Grumbling, the other man could only follow his enthusiastic friend.

-:-

"I smell blood," murmured Kakashi, lengthening his strides, his companion following suit.

They stopped first at Sakura's home; no one was there, but one of the walls had clearly been broken through. Nothing else appeared to be in disarray at first glance.

"What happened here?" wondered the silver-haired man aloud, looking around in hopes of seeing either Sakura or her apprentice.

"Quick, Kakashi-san! Let's follow the tracks!"

Both men ran through the forest, following the path of broken trees and upturned ground. The scent of blood only grew stronger with each step they took, until they at last came to stand at the edge of a newly-made clearing.

"Kami-sama…" whispered Gai, rushing at the broken body's side.

He gently turned the young girl on her back, mindful of her injuries.

"Sensei? Sensei! What happened here?"

Kakashi kneeled next to him gravely, eyes roving the girl's body intently.

"A battle took place here. There is no doubt about it. There's no one else around, though. We should get back to Konoha to get her treated."

Nodding, Gai took the unconscious child in his arms, saying, "Shouldn't we find her apprentice first?"

Kakashi agreed swiftly, dispatching his dogs to find the blonde as soon as possible while they returned to the house.

Neither one was a medic, but they had learned some basic first-aid. Still, her wounds were too severe for either of them to do much good about them. They really needed a doctor.

Apparently, the young apprentice had not been far. He managed to give them a brief review of what had happened as he stabilized his diminutive sensei, but he told them they should bring her to their village to get her healed by their medics, as he was not experienced enough to heal her more important injuries.

"Ligaments are tricky to heal properly. The most I could do was heal the broken bones partially. For the rest, you should really take her to a fully-accomplished medic soon."

During that time, Sakura never once twitched.

-:-

Bringing the medic back to Konoha immediately caused an uproar among the ninja population. The first ones who saw her, lying deathly still in Gai's arms, stopped and stared before streaking off to inform their comrades. The ninja grapevine was in motion. Before long, the whole shinobi populace was aware that something had happened to the pink-haired medic, something harsh enough that she was immediately ushered to the hospital. Even the civilians noticed something was afoot when they saw more ninja than usual run across the rooftops in direction of the hospital.

The medics assigned to work on Sakura had to close the blinds and threaten the ninja openly ogling them from the windows.

"What's up with them?" whispered a young medic.

"You really haven't gone out of this village much in the last year, have you? She's become something of a legend among ninja. She's said to have skills rivaling that of the legendary Sannin Tsunade and, more than that, she'll heal just about anybody who comes to her. Her place is neutral grounds, so for her to be attacked…No Kage would order that unless he wanted to start a war."

There was a moment of silence.

"Is she really that important?"

"I doubt there would be any less ninja at the windows if this were another village."

-:-

The hospital room was, for once, cozier and more homely than usual. Instead of the flowers and chocolates that might have adorned a civilian's room, this one was full of people stopping by for a moment, leaving some token behind—apparently, kunai and chakra pills were a favourite—before exiting through the window. The young girl slept on peacefully, unaware.

"Chakra exhaustion is a severe ailment. Add to that the number of extensive injuries…She will wake up eventually."

"What about her hands? They were in pretty bad shape…"

"Whatever it was that pierced through them destroyed them, Jiraiya-sama. There are numerous shards of bone in her flesh. We need the expertise of someone better than we are. As it is, she wouldn't be able to use them, especially if we got her off the painkillers."

A groan stopped them short. Their heads snapped in the direction of the sun-lit bed where the pink-haired child was apparently waking up. The medic excused himself, leaving the Sannin to rush to the girl's side. He put a glass to her lips, gently coaxing her to drink some water to soothe her throat.

"Oh…I'm still alive…" murmured Sakura. "But damn if it doesn't hurt like hell…"

"What the hell were you thinking, taking on an Akatsuki member all alone? You could have been killed! You nearly were!" ranted Jiraiya, his tone betraying his concern.

"Hehe. Don't worry about me. I'll be up and running in no time, you'll see. And then you'll wish I had stayed in bed rest longer," retorted the child with a grim smile laced with pain.

"Kuso, Sakura-chan, that's no joking matter! This is very serious! If Akatsuki's targeted you, they won't stop at that once they realize you're still alive! Do you even know what they're capable of?"

"Of course I am. The reason we fought was because I wouldn't join in the first place. Hoshigaki-san…he left after we fought, after realizing I'd never join them. He…seemingly understood, when I rendered my hands useless. Though he said if I strayed from my path he would come again to take me to the Akatsuki…"

Too many thoughts swirled around in Jiraiya's mind.

"Wait…You did this to yourself?" he exclaimed, aghast, glancing at her red-patterned bandaged hands.

Sakura idly stroked the bandages on her left hand, turning her head toward her window. The sun gently illuminated her tired face.

"I had no choice. His sword sprouted spikes when I took it. Besides, this is not the first time I've sacrificed part of my body for my goal."

Her smile was wan when she turned her head in his direction.

"You didn't really think I had lost my eyes in some benign incident, did you? I lost them one after the other when I refused to do something that went against my principles. That man, Hoshigaki-san…He might be the only person who can truly understand my resolve…I don't know…I feel so tired…"

She slowly drifted off to sleep once more, leaving Jiraiya with more questions than answers.

-:-

The room was empty safe for the sunrays when a knock resounded against the open door.

"Hello, sensei. How are you feeling?"

A smile bloomed on her face at the familiar voice.

"Itachi-san. Come in, make yourself at home," she said, turning her head away from the window.

"Sakura-nee-chan!"

"Hey, Sasuke-kun!" she said, smile widening.

The child scrambled up to her bed, settling himself on it. Somehow, Mikoto must have had a word with him, for he tried not to jar her injuries. That was minimally successful, but Sakura didn't comment on it, so Itachi didn't either.

"Are you alright, Sakura-nee-chan? Okaa-san said you only go to the hospital if you're in bad shape. Are you in bad shape, nee-chan?"

"Well," began Sakura as Itachi settled himself calmly in a chair next to her bed, "I had an encounter with someone who wouldn't accept no for an answer. So yeah, I guess I'm in pretty bad shape. But just because I can't leave my bed doesn't mean I'm done for, you know. At least it doesn't hurt much when I breathe anymore."

"Then you're fine?" asked Sasuke with distrusting eyes as he looked at her bandaged body.

"Eto…Fine is a big word. I mean, my world currently is confined to this room, but…I'm healing. I should be able to get out soon."

There was a moment during which Sasuke still looked suspicious before he hesitatingly said, "But…You're a medic, right? So why can't you heal yourself?"

A snort escaped Sakura's lips, making her hiss a moment later as the movement jarred her injured ribs.

"Apparently, I have to rest. Which means I can't use any chakra. When I got here, I had a severe case of chakra exhaustion, you see, so I have to wait until my reserves fill up once again."

Sasuke nodded gravely, the pensive expression looking out of place on his youthful face. Itachi softly suggested to Sasuke that he should get something to drink from the vending machine. The younger Uchiha barely whined before doing so, closing the door behind him.

"Sensei. I…"

He clenched his fingers, mouth suddenly dry, and looked down at his lap.

As the silence stretched on, Sakura's smile softened.

"Come on," she said gently, urging him closer with her hand. "Get up here."

Itachi caught her hand and clasped it tightly—firmly enough, but making sure he didn't hurt her. Shuddering, he took a deep breath through his nose, eyes clenching shut. Sakura gingerly coaxed his bowed form closer and put an arm around his shoulders. In return, Itachi put an arm around her middle as he burrowed his face in her chest. His hair hid his face from view, but they both knew that his face was set in a tortured expression. The steady thumping of her heart slowly, ever so slowly appeased him. She was alive. Hurt, yes, but alive. That was more than he could have hoped for when he had heard of the state she had arrived in.

Sakura ran her fingers slowly through the male's long hair as he slowly relaxed. Somehow, that relaxed her too. Now, if only she could have felt that hair, instead of those bloody bandages…

She refrained from sighing, wishing she could be out there in the sun. Why did that image involve Itachi next to her?

She didn't have time to dwell on it, as Sasuke entered the room, frowning, and pointed an accusing finger at his older brother.

"Aniki! That's sly! You wanted to hog Sakura-nee-chan all to yourself!"

-:-

Tsunade looked at the letter with a raised eyebrow. Her old teammate was getting her involved in strange things once again. She was flattered that he recognized her talent as a medic, but there was a reason she had left Konoha. Hospitals and blood did not do well with her. Not anymore. Not after…

"Are you alright, Tsunade-sama? You have been looking at this letter for a while now."

Shaking herself, the Sannin took her mind off her morbid thoughts and gave a small smile to her apprentice.

"Everything is fine, Shizune. I was just contemplating how I should reply to that old pervert of an ex-temmate."

Shizune nodded.

"Oh, that explains why you were pensive. Shall I fetch you some paper?"

"Hai, please. I don't think I can accede to his request this time around," replied Tsunade, taking a sip from her sake cup.

"Oh? That surprises me," murmured Shizune, handing the blonde the requested paper. "What did he want?"

Tsunade leaned on her hand, looking at her apprentice with half-lidded eyes.

"You remember that some time ago, I visited a pink-haired child, right?"

"Hai. A medic, I believe, by the name of Sakura," responded Shizune, tapping her lower lip with a finger as she remembered the incident.

"Indeed. She was attacked recently, and her hands were hurt badly. He says they were mangled beyond recognition. She can't use chakra at the moment, and they can't keep her doped up on painkillers indefinitely so that she doesn't find the pain excruciating. The problem is that the medics in Konoha are not experienced enough to heal her hands properly; too many were lost in the war."

_Dan…_

"So he asked for your help?" inquired Shizune politely, sitting down in front of her mentor.

"He did. But I can't do it. I just…can't. So you will go instead."

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Filler chapters. How boring they can be to write. Hopefully, it was more interesting to read than it was for me to write this one. Still, some important things happened here. Did you like the moment between Itachi and Sakura? More to come in the next chapter!


	21. Mostly Successful Escapes

Sooooo…Now that I've written this instead of studying for my midterms like I was supposed to…You'd better enjoy! I did have some fun with this, you know. But now I'm too tired to reread it, so bear with it if there are any mistakes.

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It is said that a teacher always leaves some part of himself in a student. While Sakura tended to act usually more like Tsunade, today, the part of her that had been taught by Kakashi reared its head. She had to get out and get some fresh air. Staying in a hospital was all good, but after a few days, she was getting anxious to see the outside world.

Of course, escaping from her room, as under surveillance as she was, and doing so without using chakra was difficult, but by no means impossible. Then there was the problem of her hands. They were pretty much useless, and even attempting to move them sent sharp bolts of pain coursing through her body, forcing her to clench her teeth and hope it passed.

And so, she was currently using her feet to tie a rope to her bed—really, she would have to thank whoever gave it to her—in order to escape through the window. Going down the rope without using her hands felt a bit like bungee jumping without an elastic, but she managed, happy to see that no one had stopped her; then again, she had chosen to escape _now_ because she knew that was the time when she got the least visitors. Lightly jumping to the ground with a small somersault, she let the rope go, untangling her feet from it, and cried out in victory with a bright smile before dashing off; already, nurses were yelling at her to come back.

She cursed successively Kisame, her body, and Konoha herself for not having Tsunade as a medic anymore as she was forced to stop and clutched her side in pain. At least she had lost the nurses. For now, she would enjoy her day outside. And hope they didn't bind her to the bed when she returned. If she managed to find her way back—without her chakra, she couldn't "see" and was mostly relying on her hearing to get by. Fortunately, a nice old woman walked with her up to the park, chatting with her for a while before leaving to go to the market. Apparently, she was going to bake gingerbread cookies for her grandchildren.

She sat on a park bench, wiggling her bare toes in the bright sunlight, and smiled as a breeze ruffled her hair. Nothing like going outside, really. Now, if only she could use her chakra, all would be perfect. But even though it irked her, she knew that she shouldn't push herself if she didn't have to. It would make for a much better recovery.

It turned out she was found sooner than expected, as she was suddenly tackled to the ground from the side. She ground her teeth, hissing, and cursed loudly in her mind. That had hurt like a bitch, damnit!

"Wah, nee-chan! I'm so happy to see you!"

Trying not to jar her injuries as she panted in pain, she grounded out, "Get. Off. Naruto."

"Huh? Ah, sorry! Did I hurt you, nee-chan?"

She got up gingerly with his enthusiastic help and grimaced as she told him that she should not be out and about, but that the day was so nice that she had given the slip to the nurses.

Naruto shuddered.

"The hospital is not a nice place, nee-chan. It's good that you're out of that awful place!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms up. He settled back on the bench next to her and swung his legs back and forth. There was a moment of peaceful silence before the boisterous boy opened his mouth once again.

"It's been sooooo long since you were here, nee-chan! What were you doing that kept you away?"

Sakura smiled softly.

"You may not understand yet, but sometimes, people have obligations they can't get out of. When you become a ninja, you'll understand what I mean. Duty can be more important than yourself, even more important than your own life. As long as there were people stopping by to get me to heal them, I couldn't leave. Aaaaand even though I have an apprentice, he's still learning. The people who come to me are usually in dire shape, and he's not good enough to heal them completely. He can stabilize them, though, most of the time. As to why I'm suddenly here…Let's just say I had a meeting with someone I didn't see eye to eye with."

"Looks like it didn't go well," remarked Naruto. He ran his eyes across the female's body, noting the various bandages that adorned her under her crisp white hospital clothes.

She snorted through her nose, barely paying any attention to the sting she felt in her ribs at the movement.

"Actually…It didn't go as bad as it could have. How surprising…" she trailed off pensively.

Naruto didn't exactly understand her words, but he had a feeling he would, one day.

For the moment, though, there was one thing he wanted to do. He jumped to his feet and gently—he may be a kid, but he had seen her wince in pain at the slightest movement—helped her to get up.

"Come on, nee-chan, there's somebody I want you to meet! I'm sure you'll like her!"

Leaning on him for support, she slowly made her way through the park, wondering where they were going. Strangely, with each step she took, her head began pounding more and more. For all days to get a migraine…Still, she continued to walk and act cheerfully, not wanting to worry the blonde. All the while, her head felt like it was splitting open. Her steps grew slower and slower, she leaned more heavily on the young boy, and was so concentrated on her body's worsening state that she almost missed the introductions Naruto made.

"Oh, so you're the one Sasuke-kun is always talking about!"

She would have grabbed at her head in pain, but her legs gave out on her and, with a silent sigh, she crumbled to the ground in a faint.

-:-

The two children panicked as the older girl lost consciousness without a sound. Naruto grabbed the doctor, struggling under her weight, but he didn't have time to call for help before two shinobi landed next to them.

"Quick! I don't know what's wrong with nee-chan, but she just collapsed all of a sudden!"

Genma rolled his senbon to the other side of his mouth, muttering that it was a good thing that they had followed her while his companion pressed two fingers to the side of her neck.

"She's got no pulse!"

Genma cursed loudly, yelling that he was going to bring her to the hospital as the attempts he made at CPR turned out to be unsuccessful. As he zoomed across the rooftops, running as fast as he could, the pale girl didn't move an inch, but if he had paid closer attention, he would have noticed that the further they got, the more her state changed. By the time he burst through the hospital doors, weak exhalations left her blue lips regularly. Weak, but regular. As doctors and nurses alike surrounded her, Genma breathed a sigh of relief. Apart from the beating he would have got for letting her die under his very nose, there was the fact that he rather like the young girl. She was like a fiery candy. Sweet and passionate, such an interesting combination.

-:-

Her whole body hurt; every breath she took was painful. Disoriented, she curled in a ball, hoping to ward off the pain with the action. It was unsuccessful, but she at least felt somewhat more secure.

_I knew it was a bad idea…Meeting my younger self is something I must not do _ever_ again. Daaaaaamn…I knew two of us couldn't exist simultaneously. Still, it seems that as long as I stay away from her, I'll be fine. Thank Kami. No contact, huh? I guess for a paradox, that's more than I could have expected…_

Still, it hurt to know for sure that she could never talk to her younger self unless through letters. Or at least not touch her, as she had collapsed at the very moment the younger girl had put a hand on her arm. At least, people would think that her state was due to a relapse in a jutsu she had been hit with during her fight or something, so they wouldn't be too suspicious.

Feeling substantially better, she sat up slowly, letting the crisp white sheets pool at her waist.

"Hello, Sakura-sensei."

She tensed minutely, having not heard the person come in—but then again, she couldn't use her jutsu to "see" energy, so she felt pretty much naked at the moment.

"I'm Shizune. You've met my master before, Tsunade-sama?"

Throat suddenly dry, Sakura nodded dumbly.

"Good. She sent me in her stead to take care of your injuries. I've already read your file and I have to say…your body was pretty messed up when you were brought here. Fortunately, I can handle it. I'm sure you would like to be able to use your hands soon, ne?"

Finally finding her voice, Sakura nodded once again.

"I would, indeed. It would give me at least a semblance of normalcy."

Chuckling lightly, Shizune sat on a chair next to the bed and gingerly took a bandaged hand in hers. She unraveled the bandages and drew a hissing breath at the sight.

"Chikushou…That's really worse than I imagined…I'll do my best, but expect to remain scarred," she murmured, voice catching in her throat.

Sakura turned her head away, uncomfortable. She shifted a bit on the bed as she replied without emotions, "I expected that when I damaged them, Shizune-san. I prefer that to losing my life or my freedom."

Realization flashed in the older girl's eyes as she said slowly, "_You_ did this to yourself? Consciously? Kusooooo…You sure have guts, that's for sure."

Sakura smiled grimly.

"Courage is not conquering fear for yourself but refusing to succumb to fear for a reason that surpasses yourself. That…My work is more important than my body. If my ideals could be so easily tossed aside, I would be better off dead. Still…It did hurt like hell to use that sword with spikes thrusting out my hands…"

Shizune became slightly greener than she was but continued to work on the mangled flesh dutifully.

"Tsunade-sama sends you her regards," she said as she concentrated on reknitting the flesh together. "She would have helped you herself, but…I'm afraid hospitals do not sit well with her, and when she heard what kind of injuries you had gotten, she could not bear to do it herself."

Knowing the blonde's trauma well, Sakura nodded. She understood how her old mentor could have felt and felt thankful that she had still sent her precious Shizune to help her out in her stead.

The silence stretched on comfortably, punctuated once or twice by comments from the older medic.

"Anyway, you should take it easy. You must keep from using any chakra for the time being and get some rest. I'll come by tomorrow to heal you some more. At least, for now, you should be able to move your hands around without excruciating pain. I've numbed the nerves quite a bit. Now, I believe there is someone who wants to see you," said Shizune as she got up. She walked out of the room, letting the door open behind her.

Moments later, dragging steps could be heard, followed by a "How troublesome" that made the corners of the young medic's lips twitch.

"Hey, Shikamaru-kun. Nice to see you."

The Nara approached with deliberately noisy steps, for which she was thankful. That way, she could at least know where he basically was. The boy set something on her outstretched legs before reclining back in his chair. She slowly ran her hands on the smooth wood, mentally trying to picture what it was.

"A shogi board."

She chuckled at the realization. In response, Shikamaru shrugged lazily.

"You can't see the pieces anymore, but I can tell you where they are. Won't you play with me, sensei?"

She had a feeling he meant more than he was saying, but then again, Shikamaru had always been someone who used metaphors more often than not in order to say as few words as he could while still conveying his meaning.

Well, she had his backing, it seemed. With a small smile, she waited for him to set the board and proceeded to play as best as she could, fully aware that she looked truly pitiful every time she moved a piece with trembling hands. Despite all his mutterings of "Troublesome" and "Annoying", the young boy still didn't up and leave and with utmost patience, guided her through the game, long into the sunny afternoon.

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Well…I promise more fun soon. Now that Sakura's on the road to recovery, fun things await.

By the way, guys, thank you so much for the reviews! We've reached the 555th one and more! I'm so proud! (Author proceeds to blubber all over her keyboard and gets taken to a mental hospital)


	22. Cousin Rivalry

Can you believe I began writing this almost two weeks ago? Midterms caught up to me, I'm afraid. I hope you enjoy this little baby, I happen to like it very much. Thanks for all your wonderful reviews, they really helped me to bear the lonely time I spent not writing but studying as much as I could. Conrii, I want to personally thank you for your feedback. While I have broken some of my bones in my life, I fortunately have never got any broken ribs. I'm thus quite happy my imagination was up to par with reality. I'm gonna stop rambling now and let you read now.

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Playing shogi with Shikamaru was a great way to pass time, Sakura had to admit. Their battles on the board were always very intense and stimulating; what's more, he didn't cheat despite her obvious handicap (Naruto probably would have). Somehow, his father had joined in, too—whether that was because he was jealous of his son or because he simply had too much time on his hands (despite being a Clan Head) she did not know. It did, however, make for much more interesting afternoons. Thus, her other visitors had taken to visiting her in the morning rather than risk disrupting a shogi session—both Nara could be quite frightening when displeased. Somehow, Jiraiya found the time to act like a worried father in-between peeping sessions at the women's baths. It was rather remarkable that he did not mind the bruises when he came to see her and act all fatherly, but then again, Jiraiya was in a separate category when it came to weirdness (especially related to women). Still, that did not keep her for berating him every time he came with new bruises. Most of the time, though, she was free from his childish self.

During one such morning, Genma found her room overtaken by hawks, of all things.

"Gah! What's happening here?" he exclaimed, ducking as one of the birds swooped down at him.

Looking up at the disruption, Sakura smiled brightly.

"Genma-kun!" she exclaimed happily. "How are you?"

Chuckling, the ninja approached the bed, shaking his head in wonder.

"Isn't that supposed to be my enquiry? _You're_ the one I carried here in a flash not too long ago, after all."

"And I thank you for it," replied Sakura graciously with a small amused smile.

"Heh. What else could I have done? I couldn't let you die off _that_ easily, could I? I still haven't found someone who can do massages quite as good as you, sensei," he joked good-humouredly.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to wait a bit longer before I can do that, though," pointed out Sakura as she twirled her bandaged hands as proof. "As it is, I would much rather like to be able to see what I'm doing. These hawks are waiting for me to reply to the messages they brought, but I'm quite incapable of answering them at the moment."

Looking closer, Genma noticed that scrolls were mixed with the covers, some of them on the bedside table and others on the floor.

"Oho. Get-well wishes?" he asked, picking one up from the floor to deposit it on the crowded bedside table.

"Mmhmm. Most of them are from Kage declining any responsibility in my attack, but some of them are from ex-patients of mine. I have to reply to them and send messages around to convey that none of them are responsible for what happened to me less they start waging a war to avenge me or something. That would be pretty ridiculous; they all are in need of me, so they wouldn't attack me, even if I heal their enemies as well as their allies. The problem is that they know my writing, so if I ask somebody else to write the letters for me, they'll notice something is amiss and may not believe my letter is valid. Can you supervise me as I write? Just make sure my writing is somewhat readable before I send the letters. Of course, I'll explain my situation so that they will understand, but there would be no point in sending a letter if it was too messy to read."

"Sure," agreed Genma, sitting down in the visitors' chair after dislodging a particularly vicious hawk from its perch—said hawk huffed, clawed at him some more, and settled comfortably on top of his head, much to his annoyance.

He patiently helped her through her letters, making her suggest, revelling in his horrified denegation, that he should teach a team. He had, after all, enough patience for that.

"Never!" he proclaimed loudly. "Women are not interested in guys who have kids following them around. Even if they're not his. I will not subject myself to that abomination!"

Sakura shrugged with a knowing smile.

"Who knows…Maybe you will find somebody more than just a one-night stand who will mean much to you and won't mind a few kids. Hm…If you ever have little Genma-chan, you have to let me know, ne?"

He covered his ears with his hands, chanting, "I'm not listening, I can't hear anything" over and over again above her laughter. As such, he missed the fond smile a certain medic sported when she entered the room of her patient.

-:-

It appeared Itachi had been out on a mission when she had collapsed, but the first thing he did when he came back and learned the news from his mother had been to go straight to her. Still in his gear. He had appeared at her window as the sun slowly descended over the village, tainting the sky a brilliant gold. She had been resting drowsily after her meal and had lazily turned her head at the sound of rustling clothes.

"Sensei…You're alright…" he breathed reverently in relief, voice quiet in the peaceful room.

"Hey…You're back," she murmured sleepily.

He had the strangest urge to respond, "I'm home," but he refrained himself, simply agreeing as he climbed in.

"I've just heard. Are you feeling well, sensei?" he asked, eyes perusing her body for any changes since his last visit.

"Hai, Itachi-san. I'll be able to use chakra any day now, and then I'll be able to get out of here. But are you sure it's alright for you to be here so soon after your mission? Shouldn't you be with your family?"

Itachi stayed impassively next to her bed, not touching her.

"I stopped by before. I just wanted to make sure for myself. I shall leave you to rest, sensei."

She hummed lightly, knowing he would visit her again tomorrow.

-:-

And so did the boy come back on the next morning. To his surprise, someone had been by before him. Whoever it was must have gotten up at dawn to visit her, for it was still fairly early. Sakura informed him with a smile that Naruto had stopped by earlier in order to see the fewest people possible in the hospital on his way up to her room. With a fond smile, she recounted that he had not wanted to stay long and had acted skittish like a trapped animal, but that he had been resolute in his want to appraise her state with his own eyes. He did not trust people to tell him the truth, and his beloved Sakura-chan was worried, so he wanted to be able to tell her the good news as soon as possible. Knowing how he detested and feared hospitals, she had been rather flattered he had come at all.

Itachi nodded, watching her toy with a cup of instant ramen. She ran a finger across the edge thoughtfully as he put his bag down. She was startled out of her reverie and lifted an eyebrow in question.

"What's that?" she asked curiously at the peculiar sound.

"Scrolls. You can't go to the library, but I borrowed a few scrolls that would interest you. You'll soon be able to read them on your own, but at present, I can read to you."

"You would?" asked Sakura with a bright smile that made the sun pale in comparison.

Opening the bag, Itachi nodded with a face less tense than usual.

"Indeed, sensei. Would you care to hear about the theory of the importance in using boar before ram in earth-based jutsu? Or chakra patterns in a comatose patient?"

As much as she longed to enlarge her knowledge of ninjutsu, the second option had her practically salivating at the mouth.

"Oh, the second one, please. It sounds so interesting! So many possibilities…I know it will be great!"

-:-

After a few more days of rest at the hospital, Sakura managed to convince the medics to let her go. Under the condition of not overexerting herself and using her chakra with restraint when healing herself, they finally let her go reluctantly. Shizune was harder to convince, but in the end, Sakura promised to visit her once she was fully healed and show her her hands as proof.

For the moment, though, the girl rested at the Uchiha Clan Head's house. The Uchiha brothers often accompanied her, as did Shisui. The latter was so radically different from Itachi it was a wonder to her that they were related.

"Ne, Ita-chan! Come and spar with me! I'm boooored!" exclaimed Shisui, pouting from his position upside-down in the sakura tree that graced the courtyard. Under it, Sakura smiled in amusement as Itachi's eye twitched in annoyance.

Said "Ita-chan" proceeded to studiously ignore his cousin while continuing to read a scroll aloud and comment on it from time to time.

Both youngsters could sense the tension growing in their companion. It built steadily until, finally, the older Uchiha couldn't bear it anymore and snapped, clenching his hands in his hair painfully.

"AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH! That's it, I'm kidnapping you!"

With a single jump, he landed in front of them, snatched Sakura, and disappeared in smoke with a last, "Ho, samurai in shining armour, come and rescue the fair princess from my clutches if you so dare!".

Itachi blinked, unbelieving, then growled.

"Okaa-sama, don't expect me for supper!" he yelled before disappearing too.

Uchiha Mikoto stepped out onto the veranda and shook her head with a small smile. Well, ass-whipping an asswipe once in a while had always been a good way to relieve stress. Healthy boys needed to work a sweat now and then.

Then she thought about Sakura.

Well, the dear girl should enjoy the fight, if only because any girl liked having males sweat and bleed over them.

Whistling merrily, she returned to the kitchen with a smirk.

-:-

The training grounds were less destroyed than when she trained, but they were still pretty much torn up. Itachi and Shisui, for all their clan was known for their doujutsu, were very good at ninjutsu. As such, the area didn't remotely resemble what it had been originally, except for the small corner where she was seated, back to a rock.

As interesting as the battle between the Uchiha had been, she had found herself falling asleep as the sun slowly set over the horizon and still the battle raged on. Maybe it was her complete trust in them that had allowed her to fall to sleep, or maybe it was that her body was still recuperating, but sleep came over her, calming and deep, stealing her senses.

-:-

Panting, Shisui fell to his knees and lifted a hand in a halting movement.

"Enough," he wheezed, wincing as the movement strained a broken bone or two. "You win this battle. I surrender the lady to you."

To his internal amusement—he was bruised enough that he didn't want to incur his cousin's wrath any more than necessary—Itachi blinked before seemingly remembering that what had started the whole battle had been the kidnapping of the young doctor. His eyes found her sleeping form easily.

Mentally kicking himself for goading him even more—maybe he had a hidden masochistic streak, after all—Shisui smiled and suggested, "The fair lady wasn't much impressed by our exploits. Me say you ought to wake her up with a gentleman's kiss, lest she thinks you've really forgotten her. Kami knows your mother wouldn't be impressed."

Glaring at the subtle threat and not wanting to risk his mother's or Sakura's wrath, Itachi turned heels and walked steadily to the young medic. Behind him, Shisui called out to him, "And don't do it on her forehead, you pansy!".

Itachi refrained from tripping with every ounce of ninja training that had been ingrained in him and, back tensing, glared once more at his cousin with gritted teeth.

-:-

Something soft pressed gently against her lips. Head still fuzzy, Sakura reflexively parted her lips slightly, exhaling softly as whatever it was receded. It was pressed against her lips once more, this time a little more firmly, and her mouth opened a fraction wider. She reciprocated the touch, and this time, her tongue came in contact with another. They lazily touched, twirling gently in an unhurried caress that would not end. She hoped it never would, having rarely felt so at ease.

The lips against her own gently left hers, but rather than a leave, it felt more like a tender caress. And she felt warmer than before as a heartfelt smile slowly spread across her lips.

A breath blew against her lips.

"Sensei, please wake up."

Instead of answering, she slowly lifted an arm and put her hand at the nape of the male, fingers spread against the warm flesh. She applied the slightest pressure and the male easily followed the movement until their lips met once more. Their kiss was soulful, but neither of them tried to make it hurried, as though that would destroy the peace that had formed. Their lips, moulded against each other, moved slowly, but it seemed that taking their time did not make the kiss any less passionate.

_I am awake. So very, very awake._

-:-

Shisui looked in horror at the scene. Of course he had meant to tease his younger cousin, knowing how cold he was to all females, with the possible exceptions of his mother and the very girl he was kissing. His eyes could not detach themselves from the pair.

Why were they still kissing? Why hadn't they jumped apart at the first opportunity? This was disturbing. It looked too much like a kiss between lovers; sensual, slow, peaceful, and most of all, close. The closeness that flowed from them, the very feelings, were not that of friends. They were that of people whose relationship was much closer. Of people who knew each other and, more importantly, _understood_ the other.

Looking at them, Shisui understood painfully that their world was different from his; that there were things that they could see that he probably never would.

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That last scene just begged to be written. It kinda just flowed out on its own, but I'm quite happy with it.


	23. Affection in Different Shades

Aaaand so I'm back. Midterms are done, life is good (and no, while I love writing, I refrained from impeding my studies too much) and I'm once again free to write as much as I want. So. This chapter would probably have been posted yesterday if I had spent my evening writing it instead of going out with my friends. Still, I hope you enjoy.

As for the ItaSaku involvement, I'm glad you people liked it. However, just because they kissed doesn't mean they'll have sex right away or anything. They're still only nine. I want them to be the forever type of couple instead of the passionate one that lasts only as long as their lust for each other does. Dunno if that really explains it well…Anyway, some people have complained that they were a bit young to kiss so passionately. My view is, their kiss was more sensual than sexual and not nearly as fiery as you'd probably expect if they were hormone-driven teenagers. Besides, I've had my first deep kiss when I was quite younger than that and I knew perfectly well what I was doing, so I figure they're entitled to have at least one kiss. Now, if you haven't skipped over that atrociously long note, please enjoy this new chapter.

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Maybe it said something about her being a female that her hairdo was only ever done in the first place when Itachi took her aside and styled her hair into something she could never have dreamed of doing herself. Sakura didn't care much either way.

Mikoto was so proud of her son. When Sakura emerged from her room, hair pulled up into tasteful braids, she almost cried at the sight. The girl was beautiful. It seemed like she had taught her son well, she thought smugly as she looked the girl over.

Actually, it was sad that only on her last day had the medic allowed anyone to touch her hair. She was going away that very day and looking her best, as a guest of the Uchiha should. It was such a pity that she had to go.

"My dear girl, you look beautiful. It's a shame you have to go."

Sakura smiled and thanked her.

"I have to go, now that I'm healed. Thank you for your hospitality, Uchiha-sama."

"Not at all, it was a pleasure and an honour, sensei. I'm happy to see you looking much better. Are your hands completely healed, then?"

"They don't hurt anymore, per se, but they still feel a little tender. That's to be expected, of course. I hope to reduce that with further treatments. For now…I think it's finally time to take those bandages off. It feels like an eternity since I was free of them."

She slowly unravelled the bandages, revealing pale scarred skin underneath them. She lightly traced the scars, feeling them with tender fingers. Even with her skills, she knew that they would never disappear. They would always remain as proof of what she had done to preserve her life and her ideals, of the lengths she was prepared to go to. It was a remainder of a sacrifice that she didn't quite mind. Maybe she was getting stronger, in her own way.

"It's strange to finally feel something," said Sakura, "instead of being covered in bandages. I like that."

Itachi, who had been watching from the door, spoke out, "Are you ready, sensei?"

Sakura smiled and nodded. To Mikoto's pleasure, Itachi escorted her out of the room as a proper gentleman. There was a perfect balance of chivalry and space left to an independent female in the way he treated Sakura that made his mother proud. As a kunoichi, she knew how hard it was to be treated as an equal by other shinobi yet also, at the same time, as a female. Most men either acted like the female couldn't do anything by herself, almost turning her into a damsel-in-distress, or acted like she was just one of the guys. No matter what kind of tough exterior they had, females always liked to be remembered as being part of their sex. It seemed like her son had grasped the concept pretty well, for all he acted like girls were an alien race.

Shisui strolled in like he owned the place, stopping the younger kids from leaving.

"Aha! There's my favourite sensei!" he exclaimed brightly.

Itachi's left eye twitched slightly. The arrival of his cousin never bode well for him.

"My dear girl, let me see you to the village gates!"

Sakura chuckled warmly.

"Sure, Shisui-san. I'd like that."

Itachi found it hard to believe, but Shisui actually waited until they were out of the compound to open his big mouth.

"Sooooo…You guys didn't say anything to your parents, huh, Itachi-chan?"

"Stop calling me Itachi-chan," replied the other male, deliberately ignoring the rest of his cousin's words.

"Hm. Figures. Family politics are such a pain in the ass. Tough to be you, man! At times like these, I'm happy nobody expects much of me anymore. But then again, I'm not the genius heir to the clan."

Itachi didn't answer. It was, in fact, Sakura who did moments later.

"Politics will always be politics. But things are…much more complicated than that. You both may not understand at this point in time, but…I'm not nearly suitable enough to be associated with Itachi-san. And I _never_ will be. What happened must and _will_ be forgotten. It is better if we pretend nothing happened. Please forgive me at that time for that moment of impropriety," she finished solemnly with a bow in Itachi's direction.

"Not at all, sensei. This would never have happened if not for my cousin's meddling," replied the Uchiha with a similar bow.

"Thank you, Itachi-san. Well, there we are. Here is where we part. I have some traveling to do."

The guards at the gate took one look at the papers she presented, then nodded and let her go on her merry way. No matter how much the Uchiha had wished to send her off with an escort, she herself desperately needed some time alone with herself. It seemed so rare nowadays that she could be alone.

But of course she would not be alone this time. Jiraiya accompanied her.

As the two left, the Uchiha at the village gates stayed silent for a long moment as they looked at them go.

Then Shisui looked at his cousin, even as the latter's gaze remained fixed on the horizon.

"You won't let her go that easily, huh? I know you too well to think you would let go of something you've set your sights on."

"Indeed, my dear cousin. She is too intriguing to let her go so soon. I do not yet know why she is so intriguing, but that is only a minor setback."

Shisui could have punched him. Why hadn't his baby cousin understood yet that he felt more than appreciation for the girl and that this feeling was why he wanted her nearby at all times? Oh well. The situation had much potential for him to feast on. Making fun of his baby cousin would never grow old.

-:-

Jiraiya was a great man. And she truly appreciated him. But she wished he had not accompanied her to see Tsunade.

"What do you think? Will she be happy to see me?"

Shaking her head, she answered as calmly as she could after having been asked the same question four times already, "How should I know? But if you ask me, you should refrain from peeping into women's baths on the way. Or groping women. Or acting juvenile. Wait. You know what? I think it would be better if you didn't act like yourself."

His pout elicited amused chuckles from her.

"Come on, now, jiji. We're almost there. It would be a shame if you couldn't make a good impression this time."

Sure enough, the Sannin was waiting for them at a bar. Well, while they did not know which one she would be in, after the third try, they found her. Of course, she was getting sloshed. Still, she was sober enough to recognize them and wave them over.

"Heeeeey! Lookithat! The genius and the dog!"

Jiraiya stopped walking for a moment, and she had to push him forward, hissing, "Don't make a face, _you're_ the one who slobbers all over women. Take it in stride, smile, and _please_ act like a mature adult if you ever want to be more than a pervert to her."

And then she slid in the chair next to the Sannin, leaving Jiraiya to sit in front of her, on Tsunade's left. To his credit, he did so with only a minimal glance at the blonde's cleavage.

"So. Show me your hands, girl, before we get down to business."

Business, it seems, included laughing loudly and drinking more than an average human should be able to. Without getting their liver to give out on them.

In fact, once she had examined her hands, Tsunade had let the matter drop and lured her into a drinking game. She had not had to try hard to make her drink; Sakura was more than willing to go up against her. A few hours later, the two were predictably the only ones left with enough brains to talk. And with only a slight slur, too. Jiraiya and Shizune had passed out a while ago.

"Weeeeeell….What d'you think about jiji?" asked Sakura, downing yet another shot of sake.

Tsunade lifted an eyebrow, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the utter laziness of the act and the fact that her eyes were not quite focused.

"Him? He's a pervert. An adorable one, but a peeeeeervert nonetheless."

"Yeaaaah…He's a nice guy, ne? An adoooorable one," chuckled Sakura, affectionately ruffling Jiraiya's hair. The man continued to snore, noise muffled against the table.

Even though she had more alcohol in her blood than a certified drunkard, the child could notice her old mentor's softening. It seemed there was something to be said about old friends. Maybe they would never be more than friends, but it was clear to her that despite the occasional spats, they truly loved each other.

_One day, I'll leave and that day, I hope you have each other to support you._

A small smile stretched her lips. That was all she could hope for.

-:-

Tohru looked up from his work. That chakra felt awfully familiar…

He left his hammer on the workbench and rushed out. His clear eyes brightened as his smile widened.

"SENSEI!"

He ran down the waterfall, stopping only when he saw her.

"You look well!" he exclaimed in relief, eyes roving across her small form.

"What? Of course I am! Did you expect me to show up all banged up and stuff?" she asked with a laugh.

The young man sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, unwilling to admit that was pretty much what he had expected. He laughed, unsure.

"Weeelll…"

"Hey, give me some credit! I'm more robust than you think!" she exclaimed with a chuckle, punching his arm lightly.

"Haha! Well, I know you've got more spirit than anybody else I know! I'm so glad to be your apprentice."

As they leisurely made their way back to the house, a thought crept through the girl's mind.

"Wait. You didn't come here, rushing like you did, and left a patient behind, did you?"

Her tone was saccharine; and it made him gulp as he remembered that he had, indeed, left someone behind.

"Ah! I completely forgot! There's someone I left behind! Err…We don't exactly get along, but…I figured since I'm only your apprentice, you ought to be the one to make the call. He's…he's waiting for you. Um. Outside, that is. I'll…make myself scarce, I think."

Sakura was still bewildered as he took off just as suddenly as he had appeared.

"Someone…"

She was curious, that much she had to admit. So when she rounded the corner and was greeted with a startled "Wow, you really don't look much different. Oh, you may not remember me. I'm Tachibana Toranosuke. You saved my leg from gangrene", she could only reply, "I so didn't expect you to actually show up here."

The man wiped the sweat from his naked chest with a grin.

"Welcome back, sensei. Um…Your apprentice was not exactly happy to see me."

Snorting softly, Sakura murmured, "Yeah, I can imagine why. So you did come in the end. Sorry I was not here when you arrived. There was an…occurrence that kept me away."

"Ah, I heard about that. It's kinda helped me find this place, too. The thing with the nuke-nin you fought."

"Hmhmm. The thing's been resolved, though. So now, I can give you work, but…are you still willing?"

Toranosuke threw his towel on the ground and toyed with his hammer.

"Sure. It's not like I've got anything better to do. But I may have to leave if people come after me."

Sakura nodded in understanding.

"If it's only that…My place is, for all intents and purposes, neutral. And now people are well aware that I've got the power to back up that claim. So don't stress. As for me, as long as you're willing to be a handy man, I've got no problem. Except if you try anything with my patients. Then I'd hunt you down without mercy. Take it or leave it."

It did not take him long to make a decision. In fact, he had already made it when he had come here. Besides, for a nuke-nin, to have protection was a rare thing unless you were part of some powerful organization. Not having to fear for his life would be great and probably add a few years to his life.

"That suits me, sensei. Please take care of me."

"Likewise, Tachibana-san."

-:-

But then, even though Sakura had doubts about her place in this new world of hers, it seemed others didn't. And so it was that a messenger came by a few weeks later, face stern and manner polite. He barely gave a disgusted glance at the surroundings as he entered Sakura's house and went straight to the point.

"My master, the daimyo, would like to see you about your unapproved activities on his lands, Sakura-sensei. Please come back with me as soon as possible, my lord doesn't like to be kept waiting."

That didn't bode well.

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I'm not quite satisfied with how this chapter turned out, but that's the best I can do without delaying the update for another week. Please forgive me.

Things are picking up, for those of you who wanted the return of the plot (unrelated to the ItaSaku goodness). Now review!

By the way, while I could make the chapters longer, I won't do so because it would mean updating less often, which would be penalizing you.


	24. The Political Card

Seems like I should spend more time studying, people. I promise, though, that I won't stop updating once a week ('cause I'm just too addicted to writing), so don't worry, you won't be penalized. Please enjoy this new chapter.

As a last note, I've been told that people focus too much on Sakura's lack of eyes. It is a fact that humans are usually morbidly fascinated by grave injuries, and more so when they're on children, thus explaining the reaction towards Sakura. Since people now know she's blind, though, that part will probably not be of much importance from now on.

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While she was reluctant to take Toranosuke with her, Sakura knew that she could not possibly leave him behind. For one, Tohru and he would probably kill each other before she came back. Then there was the fact that he was a nuke-nin. Even though she had proclaimed her place neutral, that would not stop the most persistent people from coming after him if they wanted to in her absence. And despite everything, he would be safe with her. The daimyo would wait until he had settled things with her before doing anything about Toranosuke. Of course, they would be separated and the nuke-nin would be kept under close scrutiny by shinobi guards, but that was to be expected.

As the palace came into view, Sakura turned to her handyman and stated simply, with a tone that conveyed the truth of her words, "Do not worry, Tachibana-san. As long as you work for me, your life is mine. I won't let anything happen to you."

At that, the messenger lifted an eyebrow condescendingly.

"If my lord decides to have him executed, there is nothing you will be able to do about it, _sensei_."

Her smile was dangerous as she replied, "I saved this man's life. As such, it is now mine to decide what to do with. And despite all your lord's power, you would do well to remember that my hands, while capable of giving life, can just as easily bring death."

Both males' eyes landed on her scarred hands, so deceptively small. Said scars were a testament to her strength and her resolve, that much they knew. And it was by now known that the man she had confronted was a force to be reckoned with. That she had survived the encounter at all said a lot about her and made the messenger wary about getting on her bad side.

The man thankfully didn't say anything more. He merely handed a pass to the guards and swiftly made his way inside the courtyard, clearly expecting the two ninja to follow. Sakura rolled her eyes mentally at his behaviour. That was why she abhorred aristocrats and those who worked for them.

It turned out the daimyo was just as haughty as his messenger. To his credit, he was also willing to hear Sakura out before deciding on the next course of events.

Standing before him in a large hall, and deliberately ignoring the advisors that kept muttering to themselves—or, worse, to the daimyo—Sakura patted Toranosuke's forearm in reassurance before he was led out of the room. And then she waited for the messenger to announce her loudly.

The noise quieted down as she made her way forward, with the exception of the tittering and giggling of brightly-dressed courtesans who, apparently, found her cute but rugged. She ignored them in favour of the daimyo who scrutinized her for a long moment before letting out, "You seem awfully young to be alone in the woods, tending to whoever comes by, girl. Where are your parents?"

"My mother is no more, and my father I seldom see. He is of no importance in this case, for his activities and mine are not related and his supervision is unwarranted."

She refrained from smirking as he sat straighter in his throne. Obviously, he had not expected her to be wordy and show her independence.

"Show some respect, girl, he is the daimyo of the lands you're on," exclaimed one of the ministers, feeling decidedly outraged at her attitude.

"Pardon me, minister, but I am a medic-nin, not a simple doctor. The one to have a say over my actions should be my Kage, but since I have no affiliation and openly declare my neutrality—which said Kage recognize, by the way—you have no jurisdiction over me as to what I do. You could forbid me from living on your lands, but I would advise you not to do such a thing, as the Kage would back me up. Besides, as long as I live on your lands, I bring income to you, for the ninja I host must eat while they are with me. If I relocate, this income will go to another country, and you would have to deal with unfavourable publicity, since my work is recognized to be a good thing by the Hidden Villages. Said villages would not see you in a good light, either, and make you lose much prestige and possibly many connections, too."

She hated to do this, but she would not be intimidated. She did not want to relocate, if only for the trouble she would have to go through. So playing the political card may be a dirty move, but the daimyo did have to know just what the facts were. The threat was subtle, but she knew if he expulsed her, the Kage would not stay silent—she wouldn't even have to say anything. Boycotting a daimyo would be nothing to them, that much she and said daimyo knew.

And judging by the uneasy silence that fell at her words, so did everyone else around.

Finally, the lord said, "That may be so, but I cannot allow you to provide protection for outlaws."

Sakura nodded. She had expected such a refusal.

"This may be so, but I assure you that my home will not become a place of hiding for them. If it did, the Kage would undoubtedly not approve. I will, however, continue to provide shelter for those nuke-nin who are willing to work for me. In exchange for their work, I will provide a safe place for them to live. If they show me loyalty, they will have my undivided protection in exchange. Should they prove to be merely trying to start an organization or to assassinate one of my patients, I will not hesitate to hunt them down and hand them over to the authorities. This I can assure you. Besides, if they can work legally, you may find that criminal activities will diminish greatly as they will not be forced to take part in illegal dealings to get by."

Whispers erupted between the ministers, hurried and pressing.

"That is impossible," said the daimyo at length. "For one, they would never recognize you as their leader and obey your orders. And it would be far too dangerous, should things turn sour. Besides, the potential for danger is too high. There is nothing to say that you would not try to usurp power if given the chance. You would be effectively creating an organization by yourself and I cannot allow that to happen."

The pink-haired child nodded grimly.

"I understand your reservations. Please know, however, that this refusal will not hinder me. Leader or not, implicit recognition is still recognition. You cannot stop what has begun. More and more patients will come to me, other medics may join me, and once word gets out that I'm willing to defend anybody who earnestly works for me, your word will mean nothing. I'm offering you a chance to save face, daimyo. Please take it."

But the man would still not be moved.

"I will not recognize your existence. Not unless you do something to prove your worth. If you abide by this condition, however, I shall not impede you."

That could spell trouble, but if it would allow Sakura to continue running her hospital of sorts without trouble, she would take the deal.

"What is it, then?"

"My only daughter, Satsuki, is mentally handicapped. She is now fifteen, but her intellect remains that of a five-year-old child. As I have no other heir, she is very important to my family but I cannot possibly marry her off in that state. My doctors have told me that it is incurable, as it is a congenital deformation. Heal her and I will approve the formation of your independent village. I will give you five years. If, by that time, you do not manage to heal her, you will leave my lands without a fight. Now go. My assistants will bring you my daughter in a moment."

This time, Sakura bowed low, head full with new thoughts.

Toranosuke was waiting for her in the antechamber.

"So, sensei? How did it go?" he asked anxiously.

And then she turned her head in his direction somewhat numbly.

"It seems that he will recognize the existence of what I do if I heal his daughter. And then he expects me to form a village and become its Kage."

She began to laugh maniacally, feeling stress roll off her shoulders. She couldn't believe it.

"Kage, me? Hahaha! Of all the impossible things to happen, he had to think of that one. What a fool! As if I could ever form a village in the first place!"

Toranosuke remained silent as she worked herself up into a frenzy, pacing back and forth with wide arm movements.

"You know, sensei," he said at length, "that may not be so impossible. I mean, if you make it public that you're willing to accept anyone willing to work for you, I'm sure many people will come to you. Besides, you could open a hospital if enough medics and civilian doctors joined you."

Sakura shook her head negatively.

"There is one problem, Tachibana-san. I refuse to ask my patients to pay for my services. That would make it impossible for some people to come to me. Besides, what I make from selling medicine at the nearby town wouldn't be enough to cover the costs of a hospital."

Toranosuke scratched the back of his head pensively.

"Well, I wouldn't mind it if you sent me on a mission. That way, you could gain money, right?"

Once more, Sakura shook her head and leaned against the wall.

"You forget you're a nuke-nin. As long as you're at my place, it's okay, but if you leave, there's no way I can guarantee your safety."

Toranosuke walked calmly over to her and leaned against the wall next to her.

"Well, you know, even if I wasn't a nuke-nin, that's a risk inherent to your job when you're a ninja…But if it helps, I can pledge loyalty to you or something, and you can give me a token to prove that I work for you or something. That way, it would be clear to the other ninja around that I'm not just a nuke-nin, wouldn't it?"

The young girl sighed heavily.

"Yeah, I suppose so…But still, to create a medical village…Damn politics."

A side door opened and a teenage girl skipped in happily. As soon as she saw Sakura, she squealed and ran to her with an ecstatic smile.

"How cuuuuuute!" she exclaimed, hands rubbing the pink tresses in wonder, like one would pet a cat.

"Hello, Satsuki-chan," replied Sakura once she had managed to pry the teenage's hands off. "I'm Sakura. It seems that you'll be living with me for a while."

"Wah, really? Really, really, really? Awesome! Do I get to play with your hair? Do I?"

"Eto…As long as you don't pull on it…" said the unsure sensei with a mental note to work Toranosuke hard to make him pay for laughing at her.

"Yay! That's so great! I get to have my own living doll!"

As Satsuki twirled around, pulling Sakura into her improvised dance, the younger girl turned to the nuke-nin and tartly growled, "You get to carry her luggage."

That promptly shut him up and turned his face ashen.

_Ah, payback, what a wonderful thing that is_, she thought with a mental smirk.

And yet, the weight of what she had to do from now on felt suddenly very heavy. She had mostly started healing people by going with the flow. If she continued like that, she would have to meddle once more in politics whereas she had tried her hardest not to. She could either try to put a stop to the events in motion or go along and see where she ended.

Did she really want either option?

_Should I do anything? Should I disappear before things get too grand?_

"Sensei, you coming?"

_Oh well. Guess I'll just have to do my best._

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Dundundun! Bet you guys didn't see that one coming! In truth, I had this planned for a long time. I mean, if she was on someone's lands, I can imagine they wouldn't be happy if she suddenly harboured nuke-nin. Right? Anyway. This Sakura put things in motion a while ago and she's pretty much realizing now that things are moving faster and in a direction she's not sure she would like them to. After all, she first started her neutrality to stay out of politics. Too bad, so sad, looks like that won't happen! Muahaha! I'm so evil.

By the way, don't worry, she won't suddenly be like, I'm-so-strong-and-have-so-much-power-I'm-awesome-and-everybody-should-be-on-their-knees-before-me. The Sakura I depict isn't all-powerful (though I like to think she still kicks ass).


	25. Deadly Deals

Sorry about the wait, everyone, I couldn't upload anything for this story due to problems on FF, but I've managed to find a way around that, thankfully. So here's your belated chapter.

I've been asked which daimyo Sakura had gone to antagonize. At first, I imagined Sakura to be in a small country near Fire, maybe the Land of Forests, but then I decided on the Land of Hot Water. It is adjacent and, more importantly, it has been evacuated during the Fourth Great Shinobi War, so I think it's a pretty fitting place for our favourite kunoichi to appear at.

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"Please stop moving, Satsuki-chan," admonished Sakura, scribbling away at a scroll.

Giggling, the fifteen-year-old twirled around the room before plopping down on her previously vacated cushion. A moment later, she began to wriggle, clearly wanting to get up and dance around the room once more.

"'Kura-chan, I'm boooored!" she pouted.

"If you remain still until I finish this sketch, I'll let you play with my hair tonight in the bath."

The older girl frowned minutely.

"All I want?" she asked, suspicious—she had learned by now that Sakura could twist words around to suit her intents if she so wished.

"All you want," agreed the pink-haired medic easily.

With a look of utmost concentration on her pretty face, Satsuki settled into a disturbing stillness. Sakura sighed mentally. The other girl was not usually so still; to see her this way now seemed unnatural.

Fortunately, Toranosuke entered a moment later with a tray full of snacks and tea. He put the tray down on the floor and proceeded to pour tea for the two girls with a calmness that apparently settled on Satsuki, too, for the girl didn't throw herself at the food. For once.

"Is there any gorp?" she asked with an urgent glance from the corner of her eyes at the food.

"Iie," answered the nuke-nin.

"Why do you like gorp so much?" asked Sakura. That point puzzled her. Obviously, the girl had grown up surrounded by luxury, so why was she so fond of something as benign as gorp?

"Because it's good, of course!" she replied as though it was an evidence, which, to her, perhaps it was.

Sakura shook her head with a small smile. She got up and stretched, then said, "Well, let's take a small break. I'll go see if we have any gorp left, alright?"

The teenager lunged at her, engulfing her in a hug even as they tumbled to the ground. She laughed and happily rubbed her face in Sakura's pink hair.

"Yay! You're the best, 'Kura-chan!"

"I get it, I get it," she mumbled around strands of long dark hair. "Now let me get up, okay?"

"Haaaaai!" chirped the happy girl. She merrily bounced back to her cushion and smiled brightly as Toranosuke handed her a tea mug.

Sakura left the two behind as she closed the door and wandered into the kitchen. Her hands flitted across jars until she found the right one and put some gorp onto a plate. She mentally noted that she would have to make some more; there wasn't much left in the house, what with Satsuki's love of the stuff and the fact that she always gave some to her patients when they left. It didn't beat ration bars, but the mix of fruits and nuts was travelers' food, after all, so it was better than nothing. And the teenager so loved to nibble on the mix at all times of the day.

"How is it going, sensei?" asked a voice from the doorframe.

"I'm almost finished adding the last touches to my diagram," replied Sakura without turning around. "Then I can start working on reversing her condition," she sighed.

"Don't work yourself too hard," admonished Tohru, stepping in the room softly. "You've been working on that diagram for two weeks now, in between healing other patients. Don't run yourself ragged. How many hours have you slept last night?"

"Does it matter?" replied the diminutive girl.

"Please, sensei. Even if you have that blindfold, I can still see the dark circles that are appearing under your eyes. You can delegate some of your work to me and Tachibana-san. No matter how much I may dislike him, I have to admit you can count on him," he said grudgingly.

Sakura sighed heavily and turned around, face set in a wan smile.

"I know, Ishika-san. I do trust both of you. But there are some things I must do myself. Besides, healing Satsuki-chan is impossible at the moment. If she had just lacked air at birth, I could have easily healed her, but her problem is congenital. Unless I manage to make a diagram of her brain and find out _exactly_ what's wrong, there's nothing I can do for her. The daimyo set that task for me because he knows _it can't be done_. Not at the moment, at least."

"So he basically just dumped her on you, discharging himself of the problem."

"Hai, I suppose you can see it that way. But if I manage to heal her, I'll create a precedent in the medical world and my work will be recognized, giving other medics a chance to heal people like her. It would also give me a unique chance to get known and rally people to me so that I can form a medical village."

"So you'll do it, then."

It wasn't a question. He could see her determination in her stance and knew the answer as surely as he was her apprentice.

"Hai. Going with the flow is not going to cut it this time. And I've never been the type of people to just watch their life pass by anyway. I'm going to fight for this ideal, Ishika-san. So that when I die, my work doesn't disappear."

She took the plate with a last "But first, I must get the Kage to accept what I'm going to do, for I can't make it a simple village where the leader's son gets to rule after said leader's death. I want the leader position to be attained through competence, not lineage. And that's going to pose a big problem to the other villages. I doubt they'll accept this as easily as they've accepted me. The emergence of a new village is always a cause for tension, you see."

As she passed by him, she murmured that she wouldn't hold it against him if his village ordered him to kill her for economic or political reasons. Though she wouldn't let herself be offed that easily.

-:-

As Fate would have it, she was still toying with the idea of a symbol representing her village when someone she had not seen in a long time came knocking at her door.

"Whoa! Kunoichi-san!" exclaimed Sakura, astonished beyond measure.

"Heya there, Sakura-sensei!" drawled the Suna woman coolly as she strolled in. "Whatcha up to nowadays?"

"Hm, I'm getting involved in politics, even though I'd rather not—wait a moment. Tachibana-san! Bring me the sake and two cups!"

Then she turned to her visitor and waved her over to a seat, saying with a smile that she finally had something better than tea to serve. Toranosuke arrived an instant later with the bottle of sake. Ensued a staring contest between him and the Suna kunoichi.

"Eto…Enjoy!" he exclaimed uneasily before bolting out of the room.

Everything remained silent for a long moment of uneasiness.

"Ano…Do you two know each other?" asked Sakura at length.

"We've run into each other a few times," admitted the older woman. "I didn't know he was working for you."

"Hm. He's got to repay a debt to me, and he doesn't mind working for me. I haven't had him under my orders for long, but so far, he's good. Anyway, what brings you here, kunoichi-san?"

"Ah, just call me Yuka, it feels a bit impersonal to be called "kunoichi-san" by a person who's had her hands buried in your chest."

Sakura chuckled in her sake cup and downed it quickly.

"Well, Yuka-san, to what do I owe your visit?"

"I was around. Just finished a mission, actually. And I thought, 'Hey, why don't I visit Sakura-sensei?' so here I am."

"So you're going back to Suna after this?" asked Sakura, an idea forming in her head.

"Hai," agreed Yuka, gulping down her sake in one shot.

"Could you escort me there?" asked the medic. "I wish to discuss business with the Kazekage."

The other kunoichi shrugged amicably.

"Sure, why not?" she said amicably.

"Thanks. And don't worry, I'm pretty sure I can run as fast as you, so I won't be a bother."

-:-

Knowing that she could come back in the blink of an eye by using her tattoo if he needed her help, Tohru didn't object to her leaving. Satsuki and Toranosuke, though, were another matter entirely. The aristocrat cried long and hard pitifully and Sakura ended up promising to bring her a souvenir from Suna to make her stop. Toranosuke, though…He didn't think it was a good idea. At all.

"Everything will be fine, Tachibana-san. I promise. Besides, if it turns out badly, you can spit on my tombstone, okay?"

The joke fell flat.

"Look. I couldn't bring you anyway. They'd never let you enter Sunagakure—you'd probably get killed, and I'd rather you survived just a bit longer. Trust in me, alright?"

Toranosuke nodded, biting his lip to keep from saying anything more. He looked away with a frown but didn't otherwise oppose her.

Yuka snorted as they left.

"Pretty protective and possessive, aren't they?"

"Yeah. It gets on my nerves. I mean, I survived just as well before they came into the picture so why are they always acting like mother hens? Is it the pink hair? 'Cause I most definitely _didn't_ choose that candy colour."

Yuka's laughter could be heard for miles.

-:-

They passed Suna's gates easily. Sakura only had to show the guards her pass and they let her enter with a greeting. She then proceeded to follow Yuka to the center of the village, though she had to wait for a while in a room, during which time the Suna kunoichi gave her report to the Kazekage. Surprisingly, she didn't feel nervous at the prospect of meeting with Gaara's father. As a matter of fact, she felt detached. Detached to the point that even she felt like it wasn't natural.

After a long while that went by too fast, Yuka reappeared with a smirk.

"Your turn, sensei. Kazekage-sama is expecting you. I'll be waiting for you outside. Take your time, I think I'm gonna go an' scar the secretary for life."

All tension left her at that.

"Alright," she chuckled. "Hopefully I won't be long."

"Take your time, take your time. I'll enjoy myself while you're gone," replied Yuka with a predatory glance at the secretary who looked at her warily.

Sakura thus entered the Kazekage's office alone; the door closed behind her with a sound of finality. Basked in the waning light of the sun, the Kage turned around and looked at her for a long moment.

"Sakura-sensei."

"Kazekage-sama."

The two appraised each other for a moment more before the Kazekage sat down in his chair and gestured for her to take the other seat.

"It seems you have matters to discuss with me, sensei."

"I do, Kazekage-sama," she said after taking a good breath. "It is my intention to form a medical village in which leadership would be passed down through skills rather than parentage."

Silence reigned for an awkward moment.

"I'd like you to approve of it. I would still do it, but I'd prefer to have you on my side. Anyone would be accepted in my medical village to be healed. I also intend to teach anybody who wants to learn medicine, be it that of a medic-nin or a civilian doctor, as I am proficient in both. I intend to form this village, Kazekage-sama. And I won't be deterred. Whoever wants to join me in my endeavor will be welcome. If, at some point, my village can send medics and doctors around to make this world a more peaceful place, I'll be satisfied."

"The idea has merit, sensei, but I can difficultly accept that you'd house and protect nuke-nin. If you were to lose control over them, or your successor was up to no good, we Kage may end up with quite a mess to clean up. I won't endorse your activities lightly. Therefore, I suggest a deal. Do this one thing for me that will show me your determination, and I'll let you conduct your activities with faith in your goodwill. Though if I gain an insight that a rebellion is fomenting in your group, I won't hesitate in wiping you off."

Yeah. Did she mention she hated politics? They always brought more headaches than she could heal. But she didn't really have a choice, so she'd have to see what kind of impossible task he had in mind for her.

"What do you want me to do, then?"

The corner of his eyes crinkled; a shiver ran down her spine: the crow's feet were not caused by a large smile but by a cruel devious smirk.

"You can die for your ideals, it appears. If so, killing my problematic son will give you no qualms, I hope. Kill him, for both our villages, or die trying, _sensei_."

_Why don't you just tell me to die in the first place? I don't think the result would be much different._

Dread pooled in her stomach. Heavily.

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Aaaaaand once again, I'm cruel and leaving you with a cliff-hanger. Not that much fun to write, but the goodies are coming next chapter! Oh, I can't wait to write it…


	26. Pink and Red

Despite feeling wholly despondent today, I managed to whip up this pearl (well, finish it, really) and I'm actually quite satisfied with the way it turned out. Tell me what you think.

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_I really attract, trouble, don't I? Naruto, I swear I'll never again say that you're a trouble magnet._

Sighing, Sakura rolled over in her bed. Sleep would not come.

_Damn that Kazekage! Just because I'm ready to die for my ideals doesn't mean I'm going to kill for them! Especially not Gaara-san!_

So. Apparently, she wouldn't get to sleep anytime soon. With a frustrated grown, she punched her pillow—sans chakra, of course—and got to her feet. Maybe a walk under the moonlight would do her some good. As long as she came back before Yuka-san woke up, there should be no problem. With that thought in mind, she put on her short yukata and Capri pants, tied her sandals properly, and jumped out the window.

And then she realized that nights in Suna were way colder than she remembered.

Shivering but unwilling to go back just yet, she rubbed her hands together on top of a house not far from Yuka's place. She had to fight the urge to put her hands under her armpits as she lightly hopped from house to house. Grumbling under her breath, she focused on infusing her skin with a solid layer of chakra. With such a chakra blanket, she could ward off the chills easily, though it felt like a waste of perfectly good chakra to do so when she could have taken a blanket from her bed before she left her room.

Now feeling much better, she twirled around in an impromptu dance, peals of laughter leaving her lips. There really was such freedom in the night, freedom that she wouldn't get once the sun rose up from its bed in the horizon.

Now feeling much happier—pushing problems to the back of her mind seemed to work wonders—she ran as fast as she could, laughing in exhilaration as she felt the wind whip at her body. The sensation stopped suddenly, however, as she took a jump between two tall buildings.

_What the—?_

Something wrapped around her tightly, bringing her down to a building to the side of her route. Arms trapped to the side, she could do nothing but wait until she could once again feel something under her feet. Of course she wouldn't be released.

"Who are you? You're not one of Suna's ninja."

_Kami-sama, could his voice be any colder and impersonal?_

"I'm not. But I'm not affiliated with any village. I'm an independent medic."

"A nuke-nin?"

"Iie! I'm just not part of any village. I'm neutral," she explained, staying still. She knew that struggling would just make him suspicious and possibly invoke his sadistic side.

Silence stretched on as she was put down so that she could sit, but she didn't fail to notice that he had not released her.

"I can't sense any lies on you, but you can't be telling the truth. You're too young to have all the knowledge required to become a medic."

"Hey, hey, don't be patronizing. I'm older than you, and as far as I can see, _you're_ good enough to be a great shinobi, so can't you give me some credit and accept that I may be talented too?"

Feeling a pang in her chest at his words, even though she really should be used to being underestimated, which seemed to be the story of her life, she turned her head away, pouting.

"Can you release me now, Gaara-san?" she whispered, throat choking up with all the sentiments that had always been buried far in her heart but seemed to now be bubbling under the surface, ready to explode at any time.

"Hn. I still don't believe you," he said pointedly as his sand retreated into his gourd. Both knew that if he wanted, it could still kill her in an instant, so it was really just a farce that she would be free of movements.

As soon as the sand recoiled from her body, she rolled to her side, keeping her back to him.

"That's fine, I won't force you to," she replied, still feeling slightly hurt. "Though I really wish someone would treat me like a normal person, for once," she muttered to herself.

Gaara snorted.

"Such things are impossible."

With a shrug, she curled into a fetal position on the roof, murmuring sleepily, "Yeah, well, I thought being blind, I'd never get to see again, so I guess even someone who can't sleep can have dreams, right?"

Under the moonlight, sleep finally caught up to her, and soon soft snores were leaving her mouth regularly. Sitting next to her, Gaara remained still, observing her with methodical curiosity. The girl was an anomaly.

He liked anomalies. Maybe he'd toy with her for a bit.

-:-

Whispers—tense whispers, she was able to recognize—were disrupting her much-needed sleep. With a frown, she grumbled something unintelligible and shifted a bit, satisfied that the whispers trailed off. Ah, peace. And then they began anew, more hurried. Her frown became deeper. Damn those whispers.

"What should we do? If she wakes up, she'll freak out and then who knows what he'll do?"

"Yeah, but we can't take her away! Don't you see the sand wrapped around her ankles?"

Feeling quite frustrated, and since her sleep had been quite effectively taken away from her, Sakura sat up with The Frown from Hell™ plastered to her face.

"My sleep, dammit!" she growled dangerously. Then she turned to her right and, with a much more mellow tone, said, "G'morning, Gaara-san. Hope your meditation wasn't interrupted by those guys."

The ninja she was pointing to, over her shoulder, blanched and desperately kept quiet in the hopes of staying alive one more day.

Gaara only nodded. The silence stretched on.

"So…I can't leave if you don't take back your sand, Gaara-san…" she trailed off leadingly. Hopefully he would take the hint.

-:-

A soft knock resounded at the kitchen window. Lifting a brow in inquiry, Yuka turned in her chair, only to spray her coffee all over her floor and, coincidently, the pack she had unceremoniously dumped there the previous day. The kitchen chair clattered to the floor as she jumped to her feet.

At the window, Sakura scratched her head sheepishly and waved at her with an even more sheepish smile. All the while being suspended upside down by her heels in midair.

"Ano…Good morning, Yuka-san…"

The Suna kunoichi opened the window, still looking slightly shell-shocked. Of course, she blamed that entirely on the early hour and the fact that the coffee she had been supposed to drink to wake up had instead been wasted all over her floor.

"What the hell? Sensei?" she exclaimed mere inches from the girl's face.

"Hehehe…That's kinda a long story. Would you mind telling Gaara-san I'm really a simple independent medic and that I don't mean any harm? I'd really like to stop feeling like a dog on a leash."

Yuka's wide eyes met Gaara's cool ones. Even simply sitting on her neighbour's rooftop, he looked more dangerous than men more than twice his age and height.

"Eeeeeeh…Gaara-san…Eto…If you could please let go of my guest?"

The jinchuuriki observed her for a moment with bored eyes, his whole attitude crying out that he was blasé. Then he looked back down at Sakura and lifted her off from her precarious position between the two buildings.

"Hn. So you are who you said you were," he murmured, fixing his jade eyes on the pinkette.

"Hai, hai. Now that we've established that, can you let me go?" asked Sakura, feeling tired of being upside down. She crossed her arms over her chest, regretting that there was no floor under her so she could tap her feet impatiently. Of course, if she was on the ground, she wouldn't feel the need to act that way in the first place.

Gaara inored her and walked off with her in tow, though he had the decency to pull her upright, at the very least. Sakura sighed and settled for a long day.

-:-

"You know, the waiter is close to peeing his pants. Can't you tone down a bit on the killing aura? Most civilians can't handle bloodlust all that well."

Gaara crossed his arms.

"That's my natural aura," he said tartly.

Leaning her head on her left hand, she twirled her spoon in his direction, accusing.

"You just like to see their reaction. By the way, this parfait tastes very good! Do you want some?"

He declined, but she took the opportunity to push her spoon in his mouth, so fast that he did not have time to react. Since there had been no killing intent in her actions, his sand hadn't risen to defend him either. With a frown, he pulled the spoon out of his mouth, feeling the dessert slide down his throat in a cold caress.

The waiter and remaining patrons of the café winced, waiting with bated breath; the girl's blood would soon shower over them.

To their surprise, the demon did not squish the pinkette who smiled widely, leaning over the table, head tilted to the side cutely above her hands.

"See? It's good, right?"

Silence. Silence. Siiiiileeeeence.

"You're strange."

She face planted.

"Gah, you idiot! That's not what you're supposed to say!"

Gaara's apathetic face became marred with a deep frown.

"Do not call me that. Pinky," he added almost as an afterthought.

A vein pulsed in her forehead as she growled dangerously with a sadistic smirk, "Oooooh, now you've done it! No one calls me Pinky, Tanuki!"

A small smirk stretched his lips as he looked at her. Despite the fact that she had gotten up and was now challenging him, his position below her didn't speak of submission in the least. He slowly got up and eyed her lazily.

"Let's settle this in a spar, Shannaro!"

"Hn. I won't go easy on you, Pinky."

"Yeah, well, I'd be very frustrated if you pulled your punches, Tanuki. Lead the way!"

Bantering all the way, the two children left the café, paying no heed to the relieved people they left behind feeling as though they'd just escaped the apocalypse. In some detached part of her brain, Sakura wondered how she could act so friendly with him, knowing he wasn't yet the Gaara who had been changed by Naruto. And then she wondered, considering his attitude at this point in time, why she wasn't dead yet.

-:-

Blood dripped on the sand.

"We've got to stop him! he's going to kill her!"

The drops sank slowly until only a crimson trace was left behind.

"I _know_, damnit, but how do you expect us to stop our little brother? _We'll_ be the ones killed instead!"

Feet scrambled for purchase on the ground before launching off just as quickly.

"Man, she creeps me out. That shit-eating grin on her face looks _way_ too out of place."

The ground split open in an eruption of sand and hardened earth.

"_Now _she creeps _me_ out. And that brother of ours, too."

The battle raged on as the siblings looked on uncertainly.

"Ne…Red and pink are similar…Somehow, I got the feeling that doesn't bode well," muttered Kankuro, feeling shivers run down his spine.

Why oh why wasn't his baby brother bathing in her blood already? Why did it look like they were playing? _Why_ was she still alive?

-:-

She was aware that they were being watched. How could she not? Gaara didn't mind them in the least, so she wouldn't either. But then amidst all her fun, a thought pierced her mind with utmost clarity as their fight relocated closer to the siblings.

_That's it!_

Her body moved on its own before she had time to think things through. The senbon flew from her hand, deadly in their accuracy.

With the barest sigh, Kankuro slumped to the ground, unmoving, not breathing, and most of all, heart stopped mid-beat in his chest.

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Dundundundun! I really am evil, aren't I? ^^

No worries, there's a twist just around the corner. But of course you'll have to wait until my next update.

Tanuki: raccoon


	27. Death and Life

I'm sooooo sorry for the wait! I've got problems with my account, and on top of that, I forced myself to go on a sabbatical to instead study for my exams (I swear, that almost killed me!) and since I write this fic week by week and don't have chapters ready in advance, you guys had to wait. Updates should return to normal now that my finals are over with.

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There was something to be said about seeing your brother murdered in front of your eyes. To a young Gaara, however, it was a bit different. To him, Kankurou was just one of the people he had to bear. Blood didn't mean much to him, except that those of the same blood as him obviously belonged to him, since he was far stronger than them. They did whatever he ordered them to do, and that was it. as young as he was, Gaara didn't quite understand that he viewed his siblings as a master would view his slaves.

As Kankuro fell to the ground without a cry, looking very much like one of the puppets he used regularly, Gaara felt the barest hint of a twinge in him. Something like dissatisfaction.

His cold eyes turned to the pink-haired girl who had been able to alleviate some of the utter boredom he felt with life.

He cocked his head to the side as shinobi after shinobi swarmed around them, and calmly uttered a single word without any emotion.

"Why?"

Why had she deprived him of his control over his brother? Did she enjoy killing as much as he himself did? Or was it an attempt to usurp his place in this world that didn't want him in the first place?

-:-

Sakura's heart bled at the confusion that practically rolled off of Gaara. She had half expected him to use his sand to crush her into some crimson-stained pulp, the sand infiltrating her every pore, pressing in her eye cavities and her ears alike, drawing tortured screams from her as she would beg for her life to be ended swiftly. Pity strangled her throat. He didn't mourn for his sibling. He didn't _understand_. How deteriorated was he, at this point in time, that he couldn't cry for the death of his only brother?

_Oh, Naruto, how I wish you were here!_

She didn't move as she was kneed in the back, forcing her to kneel on the hardened sand, but she refused to lower her head in submission and shame as the Kazekage appeared before her in all his irritation.

"You dared to kill my son?" he hissed angrily, looking at Kankuro for a moment before rounding on her.

"Was that not your wish, _Kazekage-sama_?" she asked with biting mockery. "You should have better chosen your words. If you look at your son, you'll see that the three conditions for death areachieved: no pulse, no brain activity, and no breathing. As such, I have honoured our agreement. You wanted to see me kill, did you not?"

The Kazekage could only shake in rage as she turned his words against him in front of everyone, revealing his dirty laundry in public.

"Do you feel wretched, Kazekage-sama?" continued the child. "I sure do. Ordering a death isn't as simple as one makes it appear to be when the person to die is someone you actually _care about_, is it not?"

Before the older man could reply anything, she added softly, her words dripping with poison, "Fortunately, I remembered memories of a time when I had seen someone kill a shinobi, for all I knew, before bringing him back to life. If you get the shinai out and let me treat him, you'll have your son as good as new in a few moments. I do hope you'll respect our agreement, else you'd bring shame to your village, _Kazekage-sama_."

She had him there, and they both knew it.

With a hard glint in his eyes, the leader of the village nodded stiffly, grinding out, "I will honor our agreement if you bring him back to life. If you don't, your life will be forfeit."

-:-

"It would be best if I left, Gaara-san. Would you mind letting go of me? Your brother is healthy, but I can't say I'll be for long if I stay here, your father is pretty angry at me…" she trailed off.

Indeed, the Kazekage looked ready to kill her, and it was very probable that his promise to her was the only thing that kept him from actually trying to murder her. Gaara, on the other hand, looked completely unfazed—of course, what with living with Shukaku in the same body, there was no way a human's bloodlust was going to influence him at this point.

"You took him from me, then you gave him back. You recognized your mistake towards me. As such, I will not discard you, for you have atoned for your slight towards me."

_Why can't Naruto be as literate and verbose as him?_

She shook her head. No matter how much he could talk well, the fact still remained that she had to get away.

"Ano…what if I promise to come back, when things have cooled down a bit?" she asked with an unsure smile.

Gaara's stare didn't flinch. A long moment of tense silence ensued.

"Please?" she asked with a pout. The effect would have been more effective if she'd been able to do some puppy eyes, but she'd do without.

Gaara frowned, lightly pursing his lips. That wasn't good.

"People are waiting for me," explained Sakura. "I…I really have to go. But I promise I'll come back."

"Promises don't mean anything to me," pointed out Gaara calmly with bored eyes.

A small smirk uplifted Sakura's lips.

"Well, then, if you don't believe in people's promises, _you_ promise to come and see me. I'll hold you to that promise. Come anytime," she finished with an encouraging smile, scribbling the coordinates of her home in the sand.

She itched to draw him into a hug, but she knew he wouldn't welcome it. Not at this point in time. So she settled for putting a hand on his arm with a last smile.

"Goodbye, Sabaku no Gaara."

-:-

As she reappeared in her cave, she had a strange sense of déjà vu. That suffocating chakra felt _very_ familiar.

_Can't I have a moment of peace to feel wretched about what I had to do and mourn my involvement in politics?_

She was thus in a pretty bad mood when she walked the cliff up to her newly-built house. She slid the shoji door open violently, gritting her teeth at the widely-smiling nuke-nin who awaited her, looking very much at ease in the living room.

"No way. I refuse reality. You are _so not_ here right now."

"Missed me, sensei?"

"Hoshigaki-san. What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, tone flatter than water.

Kisame lifted his hands in surrender, smile still bright.

"Hey, hey, can't I come and visit my favourite sensei? I'd have probably come sooner if I could have, but Leader-sama wasn't happy that I didn't bring you back with me last time, so it took me some time to heal from the beating he gave me, and then I didn't have missions in this part of the world anyway. Hey, think you can make that pretty chick appear once again?"

Sakura shook her head. That jutsu she had used to regain her true appearance had hurt like hell; she wouldn't use it just to please that human shark. So she harrumphed, arms crossed across her chest, and stated clearly, "You know, I'm currently playing hide-and-seek so if you could leave…"

Smile widening, Kisame enunciated just as clearly, "No. Way."

"Argh."

Feeling way too stressed out and tired, the pinkette frowned and flopped down, deliberately putting her head in his lap.

"Then don't move and don't make a sound, I'm tired."

And she proceeded to fall asleep in a bewildered Akatsuki member's lap. Hopefully she'd awaken before the rest of the household came back from whatever errand they had gone off on.

"Kuso. If I hadn't promised to leave you alone until you deviate from your path, I would so kidnap you right now, lil' sensei," he muttered. "Be glad I'm a man of beliefs."

-:-

"Aaaaaaah! That's him! That's the man who almost killed sensei last time!"

"What have you done to sensei, you bastard?"

"Shut up before I make you. She was sleeping just fine before you came."

Sakura snapped into awareness, and tensed immediately. Oh God. That firm thing she felt under her head and arms could only be Kisame's well-built thighs.

_I'm dead!_

"Well, hello there, lil' sensei. Welcome back to the world of the living," grinned Kisame.

"I plead temporary insanity and blame it on my lack of sleep," she rushed out immediately, propping herself up immediately and trying—unsuccessfully, for Kisame trapped her within his arms—to get away from the nuke-nin.

"Now, now, sensei, don't leave so soon!"

"Unhand sensei immediately!" barked Toranosuke, reminding the two of his existence and that of the other people living in the house.

_Oh my God, I foresee a bloodbath coming!_

"Um…Let me borrow you a minute, Hoshigaki-san," she exclaimed, hauling him off so fast they left behind a cloud of dust.

Coincidentally, they stopped exactly where they had fought on their previous meeting, which neither of them failed to notice.

"What the hell? Don't antagonize them!" yelled Sakura, cheeks pinking in anger and outrage. "And for one, don't come barging into my life suddenly! Especially just for kicks! I've got enough troubles, thank you very much, without adding you to the list!"

"Now, now, sensei, don't act like that," replied Kisame in a placating manner, gently patting the crown of her head.

The light pink dusting her cheeks became a fiery red as she ground out dangerously, "Get that hand off or lose it."

"Ne, sensei, don't be so cold!" he cried out, pretending to be hurt. "Hey, now that we're far from your house, ya think I could see that babe again?"

"_Focus_, Hoshigaki-san, before I force you to."

Her tone was strict, bitingly cold, and to the point. Sighing dramatically, Kisame sat back on his haunches and motioned for her to continue with a bored look on his face.

"Look. I'm trying my best to establish a neutral grounds here and people killing one another here would really be counterproductive, so can you stop adding oil to the fire and leave before something happens?"

-:-

"So Hoshigaki-san will be staying a few days and has promised to remain peaceful and not to engage in any threatening activity for the duration of his stay."

Everyone face-planted.

-:-

While everyone thought that Kisame's visit was just fortuitous, there was a reason he suddenly had time on his hands. And that reason found himself visiting secretly the most noble Uchiha Clan to poison the minds of the unhappy and gullible (to a point) ninja of the same name. The carrot he dangled above their heads was too big to pass up. Moreover, he had only carefully tended to the fire of their dissatisfaction and blown it into a raging inferno. Soon, it would be unstoppable, even if he were to somehow betray himself. Oh yes, his plans were coming along brightly…

-Omake-

"What are you doing?" asked Gaara in his usual flat voice.

"Wait, wait, this is an experiment!" shushed Sakura, looking around at the bookstore as she wandered the aisles, looking for a particular book that she eventually managed to find just a bit too high for her to take it off the shelf. Of course, that didn't deter her. Using just enough chakra, she jumped higher than a civilian would have and expertly grabbed the bright book, soon running off to Gaara with her treasure.

"Here!" she exclaimed happily, opening the book at random and putting it right under the redhead's nose. "What do you think?"

For a long moment, there was only silence. Then…

"This pose looks remarkably unrealistic. Even kunoichi aren't able to pull that off. Unless they have their spine broken, in which case I've seen something that looks like that position."

With a rueful sigh, Sakura closed the book. Of all the people she knew, Gaara was probably the only one who would compare a sexual position with that of a dead woman.

_So much for Icha Icha. Looks like not every male's manly side can be awakened by it, jiji._

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Next chapter, Itachi returns!

By the way, there was a mistake in my last notes. A tanuki is a raccoon dog, not simply a raccoon. Sorry for the mistake!


	28. Let's Make a Call

Well, now that my IbiSaku fever has abated and I've posted the plot bunny that had been running around in my brain, I can finally post this. I'll do my best to post another chapter this week, but I'm reformatting my computer, so the update may be a little late (what can I say, computers hate me). And Here comes Itachi, with more of him to come in the next chapter!

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"Aniki, I don't like it. Otou-san is cold," whined Sasuke, looking at his brother with sad, dark eyes.

Itachi looked down at his younger brother and patted his head comfortingly. He had not failed to notice, too, the growing dissatisfaction in his father and, generally, his family. He could not help but think it was not normal. While the Uchiha had always felt they had been robbed of the Hokage position years ago, that dissatisfaction had never been felt so clearly. As the eldest son and a prodigy, a lot of expectations had always been put on him, and the stress of it had been steadily drawing lines on his face years earlier than they would have usually appeared. Now, however, all of that had decupled recently and his father, in his haste to make him go up the ninja roster, was putting more stress than ever on him, ignoring his younger brother who was becoming sadder and more withdrawn by the day.

Things had to change, but he was unsure as to how to proceed. One thing he was sure of was that things could not remain as they were; his beloved younger brother was already despondent enough.

He wanted peace and calm, and a rose-colored tomorrow.

"I may have an idea, otouto," he said with a small smile. His little brother's eyes sparkled with hope at his words, making him wish it would work. He didn't want to see those clear eyes clouded by despair once more.

-:-

"Hoshigaki-san, _please_ stop looking over my shoulder, it's damn annoying."

Kisame lifted his arms up, his fingers splayed wide in surrender.

"Hey, can't blame me for being curious. I usually take people apart, not stick them back together," he muttered.

"Well, now that you have assuaged your curiosity, would you mind _backing the hell up?_" growled Sakura. "Go entertain Satsuki-chan or something, I'm sure you'd be perfect as Kisame-tou-chan."

Kisame crossed his burly blue arms together, pursing his lips.

"I'm no father, lil' sensei."

"Could have fooled me," muttered Sakura with a shrug of her shoulders. "You did come visit a child during your vacation of sorts. Unless you're a lolicon?"

"I certainly am _not_ a lolicon," snapped Kisame.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. At least make yourself useful and give me that roll of bandages next to your big-ass hands."

Rolling his eyes and wondering why he was putting up with her sass, Kisame did as he was told, only to growl a moment later as a pitter-patter of footsteps echoed down the hall. The door slid open, and a hyper Satsuki sauntered in the room, a hawk perched on her shoulder.

"Sakura-chan! You've got a letter!" she chirped happily.

"Thank you, Satsuki-chan. Ishika-san, I leave the rest to you. Don't kill each other, boys," she warned, knowing that one very much disliked the other and vice versa.

The hawk flew up to her and let the letter drop in her hands, then settled on her head gently. She thanked it and left the room, sliding the door shut behind her. She opened it in the corridor, continuing to walk as she read the message she had been sent. Satsuki waltzed round her, asking her incessantly what the letter said. With practiced ease, Sakura studiously ignored her and eventually stopped dead in her tracks as she finished deciphering the message.

"Well, that doesn't bode well. Not well at all. Satsuki-chan, I think I will have to go on a…ano…business vacation of sorts."

"What? Not again! You came back only days ago!" protested the mentally-impaired aristocrat.

"Some things are beyond my control, Satsuki-chan. And this is not something I can overlook. I'll come back as soon as possible, I promise, so be a good girl in my absence, alright? If a patient comes for me or you get too lonely, send Konoha for me and I'll be back momentarily."

Satsuki nodded, frowning at the situation. She was not exactly pleased, but knowing she could send a letter to stay in contact did calm her down.

"Bring me back a souvenir?" she asked with a pout.

"I will," promised the medic. "Help me pack a few things, will you?"

_Things are becoming serious._

-:-

Sasuke and Itachi gazed out of the Uchiha compound, waiting for a single figure in the bustling crowd.

"There! There she is, aniki!" yelled out Sasuke in excitement, jumping up from his position.

"At last," murmured Itachi, getting up more slowly and with much more poise than his brother. As Sasuke latched onto their pink-haired acquaintance and started talking her ears off, he walked up to her and took her hand in his in a gesture of friendship he didn't often use. "I am glad you are here, sensei," he said, and she knew his words were heartfelt.

"I don't know how much I will be able to do to help, but you have my entire cooperation."

-:-

To say Uchiha Fugaku was surprised when he entered his study to find a pink-haired medic waiting for him would have been an understatement. She had concealed her aura, and as such, he only noticed her presence when he slid the door open and found her sitting at his desk.

"Hello, Uchiha-san."

"Sakura-sensei? What are you doing here?" he asked in astonishment.

"It seems that you either need an ear or a way to work out your discontent and stress. I'm here to offer you both."

Still, he remained silent. Then, a coarse "Why?" escaped his lips.

"I'm your own personal little ray of sunshine. Lucky you. Enjoy it while the offer still stands."

It was not really an answer, and both of them knew it, but they ignored whatever answer she might have said as Fugaku tacitly accepted it for what it was and asked no more. There were just things that she was privy to, by what unknown ways she had access to, that he felt he must not ask how they had come to her knowledge, as long as she didn't put her knowledge to good use against his clan or Konoha. It crossed her mind that with her job, she was probably going to be a mine of information—if her ethics left her and she decided to become a spy.

-:-

Sparring with Uchiha Fugaku was a novel experience, but oh so gratifying. The Clan Head knew how to use his kekkai genkei to the best of its capacities. There were things he noticed he couldn't do, however. One such thing, and the most easily noticeable, was using genjutsu. By nature, genjutsu disturbed the chakra in a person's body in order to make that person feel something different than reality. However, Sakura, who was constantly using the technique Jiraiya had taught her to feel the nature around her, could immediately feel it if he tried to change her perceptions, as the world around her and what her body told her would immediately enter a contradicting state and, if pushed far enough, make her lose the edge around her own sensory technique. She was thus quite immune to genjutsu, not to add that many genjutsu the Uchiha used were based on their sharingan and if she could not stare into their eyes, she could not be caught in them. She would not be caught in the Tsukuyomi of a certain genius anytime soon. Even though he had not yet acquired the jutsu.

Still, fighting a man twice your size—who thus had longer limbs that could punch you when you could only curse your shorter limbs—who could read your every move was a challenge in itself. Which was why when Fugaku and Sakura came back to the Uchiha compound, they both had quite a myriad of injuries.

"What happened to the both of you?" asked Mikoto, curious as to why they both looked like they had travelled to Hell, dined with Shinigami-sama, had angered him because the sake he served was too hot for their tongues, and had then been booted out of his realm. Forcefully.

"Ah, don't worry, Mikoto-san," placated Sakura with a bright smile. "I already healed our life-threatening injuries. What's left is mostly just scratches that will heal in a day or two if left alone. I would have healed them too, but your husband is quite a good shinobi, and he forced me to use much of my chakra during our spar, so I had not much left to heal us both."

"Please, sensei, use the communal baths. Itachi-kun will show you where they are." Then she rounded on her husband. "Anata, did you take advantage of that sweet girl? Just because she can heal both of you…"

Her threat hanged in the air and he was swift to assuage her worries.

"She was the one who insisted we spar and, furthermore, didn't want me going easy on her. And for all her diminutive stature, she packs quite a punch!"

Sakura smiled and walked swiftly to Itachi's room. He opened the door right after her gentle knock and looked her over, noticing her rumpled state and relaxed stance.

"You survived."

There was a softness to his mouth as he said it that indicated he had not been overly worried for her but that he appreciated that she wasn't bleeding out in front of him.

"Of course I did!" she replied with a bright smile. "But I may not for long if I don't get cleaned soon. Your mother said that you would show me the communal baths?"

Itachi nodded and closed the door behind him, motioning for her to follow him.

"Our private hot springs are being repaired as we speak, so we must use the communal baths. Please forgive us for the lack of hospitality."

"Please, Itachi-san. It is no big deal," she replied as they grabbed bath supplies and made their way out of the house, circumventing the elder Uchiha with all the ninja grace and stealth they possessed. They walked calmly out of the Uchiha compound and into the bustling streets of Konoha, sidestepping easily a few running children—civilians, by the looks of it—and Sakura couldn't help but smile as she remembered doing the same thing, once upon a time. That seemed so long ago.

"I missed this," she confessed softly, causing her companion to turn his head to look at her.

"What did you miss?" he asked in his usual calm voice. It did not sound curious, but she knew that if he wasn't, he wouldn't have asked the question at all.

She made a sweeping gesture that encompassed everything around.

"This. The crowd, the life, the happiness that can be found on this very street. I don't…I don't have anything like that. At home, we all live in my house surrounded by forest, and despite being…content, I suppose I should say, the ones who come to me are always in bad shape. Healing them brings me satisfaction, but at the same time…At the same time, there are moments when I feel so utterly _empty_."

Itachi looked back at the street with a soft "Hn." There were things he couldn't understand, but he knew the feeling she had described as well as if he had been the one to utter the words.

So he merely grabbed her small, pale hand with his and hoped that the warmth of his hand would tell her what he couldn't say out loud.

A moment later, her hand squeezed back.

She knew.

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This was just too perfect a place not to stop here. Ah, I feel so mushy inside. I love ItaSaku. I really do.

For those of you who do not know what is a lolicon or who did not infer it from the chapter, a lolicon if basically an adult having an interest in young girls (a shotacon is the same but the interest is in young boys). So this could be translated as a pedophile.


	29. The Bathhouse

So this is late. And it's not even the fault of my computer. I didn't have access to a computer this weekend to finish this chapter, for one, and last week, I had a huge headache because during my kendo practice, I received a shinai (bamboo sword) in the face. Not actually severe, but the blow did split my eyebrow open. Try spending a week without making any facial expressions. Torture.

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The bathhouse was bustling at this hour, people going in and out intermittently. Old and young, all had a smile on their face; those who came out looked like they were ten years younger, the old gossipers recounted their day on a bench outside the crowded building or inside, while they washed off slowly, enjoying the hot water. Sakura and Itachi approached the bathhouse calmly, enjoying the last rays of the sun and discussing amicably about the theory behind a new jutsu Itachi was learning. They attracted many stares as they walked, for Sakura was clearly blind and Itachi was never seen with females other than his mother and a few prominent members of his clan.

Thus Sakura felt her skin crawling under the weight of the numerous stares, and even more so as Itachi and she went their separate ways in the bathhouse. After promising to wait for each other at the entrance, they went to their respective changing rooms. As she undressed, the medic heard various females whispering to one another about her and blatantly ogling her, thinking she couldn't see them. Well, she was used to it, mostly, so she mentally shrugged in indifference and wrapped a towel around her body.

"What does Itachi-kun see in her anyway?" asked a girl loudly enough for her to hear clearly as she headed for the bathing area. "She's not even that pretty! And pink hair? Please!"

"I bet she only pretends to be blind so that he has to take care of her!" replied another girl with an emphatic nod, sounding just as condescending as the first.

She didn't react, knowing they were just out to get a rise out of her. People like them just needed an outlet for their frustration and she refused to play the part. If they had delusions about Itachi and could not go past them, it was certainly not her problem. She hoped one day they would grow out of their fangirl tendencies, as she had done with Sasuke. For their own good.

She set her bathing supplies down next to the small bench she was going to use, still lost in thoughts as she remembered her own days as a fan, following Sasuke around in blind admiration. Maybe, if she had tried to see past his aloof exterior that she found so appealing at the time, she would have been able to become a real friend to him and have become someone he could count on and confide in. she had been so self-centered back then…

She would berate herself for this later, but she was so caught up in her old memories that she didn't give any thought to her surroundings and was thus surprised when someone snatched her blindfold with a victorious "Aha!"

She did feel acutely when the warm, moist air touched her now bare face and whirled around, eyes snapping open in shock.

For an eternity but what could only have been a second or two, absolute silence reigned. Then a loud-pitched cry of horror pierced the air.

And she was freezing, and all the gazes had become stares and were weighing her down, and she was drowning, there was no more air, but so much pressure, and it was so hard to _breathe…_

Her grasp was lost on her sensory technique and she was lost in her darkness; she didn't see Itachi jump over the wall delimiting the male and female sides, but his warmth suddenly engulfed her.

Touch was the first sense to come back to her as she realized that his arms were wrapped around her protectively, and her shivering was slowly abating. Then, in a torrential rush, hearing came back to her and she was able to hear squeals and gasps, giggles and cries, and she came to realize that Itachi had just landed in a room full of females. How…surprising.

"This is the women's bathing room."

She could hear the slight smile in his voice as he answered, "Hai, it is."

"You're not supposed to be here."

"Hn."

Ah, the "You're right" hn. It almost made her smile.

She felt his warmth leave her and heard his quiet footsteps leave her vicinity.

"You won't mind if I take that, will you?" came his voice somewhere to her right, followed by a meek "I-Iie, Itachi-kun."

Soon enough, his footfalls came back to her, and she felt him tie her blindfold snugly back around her head.

"Better, sensei?"

"Hai…Thank you. It was all my fault, I should have been more aware of my surroundings…I…didn't want to horrify anyone."

"I know, sensei. You wear that blindfold as much for others as for yourself. You didn't need it in here, but you're too good-hearted."

She chuckled dryly. Apparently, wearing the blindfold to not make people afraid or horrified at her had not worked as well as she had hoped it would.

"So you did see beneath the underneath…" she murmured thoughtfully.

"Hn. I knew I should have taken us straight to the mixed baths in the first place," murmured Itachi as he gently helped her up. "Unlike ninja, civilians didn't know what to expect from you. I should have anticipated this. It is my mistake, sensei."

He lead her to the mixed section slowly, somehow managing not to trample her ego by making her feel weak—which was pretty much a miracle in itself. Sakura, though, shook her head at his words.

"Iie. Do not blame yourself, please. I should do something about my eyes. I have thought that for a while now, but with my workload, I don't have time and energy to spend on myself. I have five years to heal Satsuki-san's congenital disease or else I'll lose my respectability and chance to create a medical village with the approval of my country's daimyo. I can't waste time on anything not related to that prospect."

"And yet you have come at my request."

"And yet I've come," she agreed softly. No more needed to be said.

-:-

There was a strange thumping in his chest. It was unnatural. Why was his heart beating faster? That pale slate was just the creamy expanse of Sakura-sensei's back. He had bathed numerous times with his mother in the past, so it could not be because he was lathering a female's back. Was it because that one was his age? Somehow, he had a feeling that wasn't it. There was something different about the pink-haired girl.

Sakura, sensing his unease, turned her head slightly to the side, as if to look at him.

"I'm sorry. Um…I can't see anything. I'm not using my technique to sense my surroundings, so, well, don't feel embarrassed. I can't see anything."

_But I can_, thought the young Uchiha. Instead, he said, "Why don't you?"

As a ninja, it was suicide not to know your surroundings, and she knew that just as much as him. It was quite a show of trust on her part to accept to be so vulnerable in his presence. But she just couldn't bring herself to use her technique. As it was, if she couldn't sense the people looking at her and whispering behind her back, she could pretend they didn't exist.

"Who knows…" she answered with a small, secretive smile.

All the tension left her body as she relaxed, losing herself in his ministrations and the repetitive circles he drew on her back with the bar of soap. His fingers lingered longer on her scars and she found herself wanting to tell him the story behind each of them. She bit down harshly on her lower leg to prevent herself from doing so, and it was almost painful to refrain herself from spilling her past to him.

"You have had a difficult life," he murmured as he rubbed his thumb across the scar Sasori had made when he had plunged his weapon straight through her stomach.

He found himself biting the inside of his cheek before whispering, "I wish I could provide for you so you would not be hurt anymore."

Sakura took her bucket of water and dumped its contents over her head to stall for a moment before she shook her head of the excess water and stood up.

"I don't regret any of these scars. They are proof that I was strong enough to live," she murmured, turning around to cup his cheek. "You are a good person, Itachi-san, but I fear your ideals will hurt you one day. You and I are not meant to be. There is something much more important to you than me or even your family, and that's your village. It is what should be for any ninja, but I fear for you, Itachi-san. I fear one day you will end up sacrificing yourself for this ideal, for you love peace more than anything."

Her hand trailed off his face and she hung her head.

"My life has crossed with yours, and I am grateful to have been able to know you, for you are one of the greatest persons I know. But I cannot be with someone who would sacrifice me for his ideals, no matter how much I may understand that decision, for I, too, work for something greater than me, and it is something that cannot exist as of yet without me. Please don't hate me for this."

His skin felt cold where her fingers had left him and that cold only spread as he watched her walk unsteadily to the bath.

He knew in the deepest confines of his soul that she was right about him; he didn't ask himself how she had managed to understand him so thoroughly. He did however swear to himself that he would never let her go. He could let go of anyone else, minus maybe his younger brother, but even he didn't understand him. Not like she did. And that made her all the more precious.

-:-

Sakura waited outside the building. The night was cool on her still damp skin, and she shivered lightly. Still, she did not wrap her arms around her body but left them dangling at her sides, palms flat against the cool wall. Somehow, it helped grounding her to reality. Her head felt hot. Her whole body felt hot. More than that, she felt feverish.

_Damn it, get a hold of yourself! You're so pathetic right now!_

She punched the wall with a fist as she hung her head.

_You're completely pathetic, Haruno Sakura. To actually want to be first in a person's heart…Haven't you learned by now that you're destined to be last in everything but medicine? Why don't you just stick to that?_

Wow, she really was good at putting herself down. Waaay pathetic.

She snorted, biting down harshly on her lower lip. The metallic tang of blood flooded her mouth.

_Pathetic._

She grimaced bitterly, ignoring the bustle of people entering and leaving the bathhouse.

"Sakura-nee-chaaaaaan!"

And then, a bright ray of sun.

_Naruto._

-:-

Naruto stiffened at first, unused to physical contact and, furthermore, engulfing hugs. He actually floundered for a while before tentatively wrapping his arms around the form of the pink-haired medic. She was trembling ever-so-slightly; how fragile it made her seem.

"You smell good, Naruto-kun. Comforting," she mumbled into his hair after a long while of silence.

"What? I don'! I smell like dirt or something!" exclaimed the young boy, somewhat insulted but even more embarrassed. He _knew_ that his hygiene was not the best.

"Nah…You smell like sunshine," she whispered, tucking him a little closer to her. "Like home."

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Gah! You wouldn't believe how hard it was to write this! It feels too angsty for my tastes, and it wasn't originally intended that way, but in retrospect, I actually like it. Go figure. Maybe I'm a gloomy person. Still, some important points were introduced here, hehehe. Do review, I'm always happy to know what you think of what I write!


	30. Delay Everything

I'm back, lovers! My computer has been cured, my internet is back and running, and I myself am not such a wreck anymore! From now on, updates shouldn't be late anymore. Let's cut this touching reunion short. Here, read this last baby of mine!

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At this hour of the night, the library should have long been closed. It was completely silent and dark and only the most hardcore of researchers still huddled, surrounded by mountains of scrolls, in dusty corners. Only then did a faint light flicker in the darkness.

In one such corner, minus light, Sakura read scroll upon scroll on anything she could find on medicine related to head injuries and anatomy. She was almost frenetic in her search, and even though she knew it well herself, she couldn't seem to stop herself. There was a desperation to her actions, but it was better that she spend it on reading than something else.

"This is not it," she grumbled to herself, passing a hand through her hair, mussing it even more than it had been before—habits could really mess a person's appearance, it seemed. "This is not it, this is not it, this is not it! Kuso!"

"Maa maa, sensei, you look frazzled tonight."

"Uwah! Nara-sama!" she yelped in fright at the calm appearance of the Clan Head. She really had to stop concentrating so much on something that she forgot her surroundings. She whirled around in her chair, sending a couple of scrolls tumbling to the floor.

Shikaku smirked lazily and leaned against a bookshelf with his hands in his pockets.

"What are you doing here at this time of the night, Shikaku-san?" she inquired softly more informally, her voice echoing in the empty library nonetheless.

"Research for Hokage-sama. How troublesome."

She hid a smile at that. Of course. It was so him that she almost snorted.

"And you, sensei? Shouldn't you be sleeping?" he asked lazily.

"Tonight…I don't want to sleep tonight. I really don't."

_I can't bring myself to._

Shikaku pushed himself away from the bookcase without a word and walked away calmly.

"Shiranui-san is currently drinking at the Lost Senbon."

A small smile stretched the tired girl's lips.

"Thanks, Shikaku-san!" she called out at his retreating back.

"That's not free information, sensei. I'll be expecting you to stop by for a game of shogi," he replied with a lazy wave.

"Fair enough," she chuckled, gathering her scrolls and stuffing them in her bag.

_You're a good man, Shikaku-san. I'm really happy to have been able to get to know you._

Moments later, she was running through the streets, heading straight for the bar Shikaku had indicated. She knew very well where it was situated, as she herself had gone there frequently with her friends during her time. It was a place that was open 24/7, for ninja coming back from a mission often needed some time to cool off with their friends and comrades. As thus, it was not unusual to see drunk shinobi stumbling out of the place at 10 in the morning.

She approached the place quickly with an assertive stance, pulling the strap of her bag straighter against her shoulder, and calmly told the bouncer that he really should let her in if he didn't want her to embarrass him by beating him up in front of everybody. The man took one look at her, saw her determined air, and, recognizing her, nodded, taking a step to the side to let her in.

She did a cursory once-over of the place, wondering where was the man she was looking for tonight, sure that his entertaining nature would bring her out of her gloomy thoughts.

_Aha!_

There, at a table a small ways from the bar, in a less crowded area, were some of her favourite people. A small smile stretched her lips as she made a beeline for them. Her pink hair swerved around the tables as she approached her goal. Even inebriated, the ninja managed to spot her before she stopped next to them.

"Hey, look! It's Sakura-sensei!" called one of the voices.

"Eh? Where?" asked one of the men before spotting her. "Hey, you're right! Sakura-sensei! Come drink with us!" he yelled, calling her over with grand gestures of his arms.

In no time, she came up to the joyous group and settled in a chair they had commandeered for her from another table, purposely ignoring the protests that rose from the occupants of said table.

"So, sensei, what are you doing here?" asked Genma, twirling his usual senbon from side to side, eyebrows rising as she ordered a bottle of the strongest sake the bar had.

In answer, Sakura rubbed her temples tiredly with a small frown in an universal gesture of tension.

"I'm delaying reality. By tomorrow afternoon, every civilian in Konoha will look at me with pity, which is more than I can tolerate."

"Is this about the thing that happened at the baths?" asked the senbon-loving man with a glance at the child.

"Yeah. Figured you'd hear about it._ This_ is why I chose to live far away from civilization," she muttered, nodding her thanks to the girl who brought her the sake bottle and placed a cup in front of her. She took a long gulp straight from the bottle before pouring herself a cup. "I _hate_ the pity people have for me. It makes me feel like a pariah. I tried to lose myself in scrolls to keep sleep at bay, but I think sake will be much better. Maybe I'll manage to sleep. Without being plagued by memories of the time I lost my eyes. Kami, sometimes I really hate my life," she growled, downing her cup and refilling it just as quickly. Yay. A pity party for herself.

Her thoughts strayed to Naruto. He hadn't understood what had been wrong with her, but he had held her as she had slowly calmed down. Fortunately, she had been well enough when Itachi had come out of the building and had thanked the little ray of sunshine heartily, promising to hang out with him soon, before letting the genius lead her back to the Uchiha compound. She was aware that she had not been the best of guests at dinner, as she had been lost in her thoughts for a good part of the supper, but that had been nothing compared to what she had felt when she had retired to her room for the night. She had lain awake for hours, thoughts plaguing her, before she could take it no longer and left for the library, leaving a note on her futon to inform her hosts of her whereabouts.

She would have this one night before she had to return to being the perfect medic and strapped her mental armour back into place.

"Ne, sensei, won't you share your sake with me?" asked a certain silver-haired pervert with his trademark eye crinkle.

"Nope," she replied instantly, "I need at least that much to get tipsy, never mind getting drunk out of my mind. I plan on getting sloshed tonight!"

"That's the way to go!" approved Genma, well on his way to getting drunk himself. "I'll drink to that, sensei!"

-:-

Genma groaned in pain. What sunlight filtered through his eyelids hurt his head, which felt as if it had doubled in size.

How much had he drunk last night?

He shifted, noting in his hazy mind that there was something warm and small tucked in his arms. The information took him a few long seconds to decode, then he felt himself awaken fully. Had he slept with some girl last night? It wouldn't be surprising—he was used to bringing home women of all styles, but he could not remember a good portion of his night. Well, whoever she was, she did smell good. His mind went back to slumberland as he wrapped his arms a little more around the girl.

"Hey, you got any aspirin—Wow, Genma, even for you, that's something. You into little girls now?"

His eyes snapped open in foreboding, now completely awake. It was with growing horror that he looked down at the girl in his arms, noting the pastel hair that only one ninja he knew sported. Bile rose in his throat as he scrambled backward, falling off his bed in the process and taking with him most of the sheets. Though he would later deny it, the yelp that escaped his throat was anything but manly.

-:-

Sakura frowned at the loss of body heat. She felt around for sheets, her frown deepening as she didn't find any near her. Grumbling under her breath, she sat up slowly, immediately sensing the grown man on the floor and the other at the door, shaking with repressed laughter.

"Give me back my heat, you heat-stealer. Sheets, now. Or at least lend me your body heat, you thief," she grumbled snarkily.

"You're so dead when her father finds out you slept with her," quipped the ninja by the door, arms crossed over his chest. He looked exceptionally at ease, which annoyed Genma even more.

"Not helping, Hatake. Do me a favour and kindly shut the fuck up," he tossed over his shoulder at the man who held his hands up in surrender, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'Just saying.'

Sakura, on the other hand, still missed her previous heater and felt her mood darken dangerously.

"You," she said, pointing to Genma, "Get your mind out of the gutter. I'd have castrated you myself if you had even tried to feel me up. Get back here. Now. And you," she continued, pointing at Kakashi, "stop tormenting him for your own fun. I'm the only one allowed to be sadistic here. Get your damn aspirin and scram, but don't go too far. We've got a lot to talk about, and if I'm forced to look for you all over Konoha, I'm not gonna be nice about it. Now shoo, it's way too early for this shit."

With that, she lay back down on the bed, leaving the two grown men to look at her with a mixture of fear, fascination, and respect. Somehow, even though she was only a fraction of their age, they felt like they had better comply with her wishes.

-:-

In the end, her peace didn't last long as a few hours later, an equally as hung-over Anko waltzed in from the window and landed on her and Genma, sending them sputtering and wheezing in but a moment. As she sluggishly rolled off, Sakura panted, suddenly wide awake, and snarled, "What the hell is with everyone today? Are you here for aspirin too?"

"Heya there, my favourite diminutive sensei!" replied Anko with a purposely overly-bright voice that made Sakura and Genma cringe mentally. "Did you know you were the talk of the village?"

With a groan, Sakura threw herself back down and put a pillow in front of her face. From said pillow, a small, whining voice came out.

"The whole village?"

Anko made a show of sticking her bottom lip out, pretending to think seriously, and tapped said lip with her index.

"Nah, just the civilian half, really."

"Like that's any better," answered Sakura from beneath her pillow, as defeated as before.

"Well, if it helps," said Anko, eyeing Genma who was attempting to sneak off into his living room to boot Kakashi out of his couch and steal the spot for himself in a bid for a few more hours of sleep, "I've got the best idea ever to make them lay off you."

Silence. Then, "Eh?"

Anko rolled her eyes and plucked the pillow out of the reach of the medic.

"Very eloquent, sensei," she replied sarcastically. "Shiranui! Get your ass back in here before I make my snakes sneak into your shorts to convince you to do it! You are gonna help me with this!"

The man turned his head around, still on all fours. His face was that of a man who had just been told by his mistress that he was going to be a father while seeing his wife on the other side of the street.

"Me?" he managed to squeak.

"Oh yeah. Your talents will definitely be useful in this."

_I almost don't want to know what she has in mind_, thought Sakura, wondering if she, too, should try to sneak out. Maybe she could get two blocks over before she was caught. Hm, was it really worth it? The very aura of the kunoichi made her decide that much quicker.

_Hell yeah!_

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Less gloomy, eh? I myself don't like it when I have to write about Sakura's eyes and everyone's reaction to that, but sometimes, it's inevitable for the plot to move on. On a happier note, you're gonna love the next chapter, I promise. Some people expressed concern that everyone was going to fall in love with Sakura. Don't worry, while they may like her as a person, they will not fall in love with her. Except Itachi, of course. And I dunno about Anko, she just suddenly appeared in this chapter. That character has plans of her own, I swear.


	31. Snakes Laugh, Weasels Take Decisions

Welcome back to this new chapter! I should be back to regular updates, so normally, the next chappie should be out next Friday. Enjoy this one for now!

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Sakura rubbed her upper arms nervously, feeling quite naked. She had gotten used to wearing a short kimono with shorts or Capri pants and to now change her attire felt strange at best. Then there was the fact that it was Anko who had decided on her particular outfit. Anko, whose taste in clothing was…special.

"Shiranui! Get your ass back in here now!" roared the older kunoichi.

Silence. Then a meek, "Please, can't you spare me?" sounded from the living room.

"I swear, if you make me go get you…" growled the sadistic woman dangerously.

The threat hung in the air for all of two seconds before the man suddenly appeared in the room next to them, looking like a condemned man.

"What can I do to help?" he said as though every word cost him.

"Put some enthusiasm in it, big boy," retorted Anko with one of her sadistic smiles. "You, here, will represent the masculine part of the populace. So, what do you think? Doesn't she look great?"

Genma gulped and asked in a tiny, whiny voice, "Why me? Couldn't it be Kakashi-san?"

Anko sniffed, waving the thought away.

"Of course not. That man is just as perverted as the man who writes the porn he so loves. Now answer the question before I make sure you can't represent the _male_ half of the villagers," she finished, twirling a kunai innocently between her fingers. A moment later, she put the tip in her mouth and sucked it with a grin and a glint of challenge in her eyes, daring him to do anything but what she had ordered him to do. "Now, make use of your so-called skills, you playboy."

With one last long-suffering sigh, Genma looked at the child who, for once, looked completely insecure. She was fidgeting, biting her lips and wringing her hands, and the very sight looked so cute it made his heart melt.

"She…She's cute," he mumbled with red cheeks, looking away bashfully.

Sakura's whole face tinged pink at that and she hung her head in embarrassment.

"Aaaaaawww, don't you two look cute! Just like a new couple!" laughed Anko, pushing Sakura into Genma so suddenly she lost her footing and was sent tumbling into him, forcing him to catch her all of a sudden. At the close contact, both of them turned bright red. A hissing laugh sounded in their ears.

And then the door to the living room snapped open and Kakashi stood there, looking horrified at the scene.

"Kami-sama! So you really are a lolicon!" he cried out dramatically. "Such an act of treason! I have to warn Jiraiya-sama!"

And he left through the window just as quickly, leaving Sakura and Genma to think that things would not turn out well.

Anko, on the other hand, looked like she was having the time of her life.

"Yup, you look great, dearest sensei!" she exclaimed, very pleased. "Now you can go out there and show those gossiping fools that you're not one to be trifled with!"

And with that, she booted both Genma and Sakura out of his apartment. For the longest moment, they stood on the pavement, looking very much out of place and feeling even more so.

"So…"began Sakura uncertainly.

"So…"echoed Genma.

"What do I actually look like? I feel like a miniature version of Anko-san, but I don't actually know what that makes me look like. And I have no idea what colours she decked me in. my sensory jutsu doesn't allow me to see such things."

Genma rubbed the back of his head ruefully, taking a step onto the street. Might as well initiate the movement.

"Well…You look a bit unsusual. Most kids don't dress in mesh shirts, right? But it does look good on you. In a mature sort of way, I mean. And at least she didn't deck you out in purples. Black actually accentuates your unusual hair. It's good, really. Though maybe the high-heeled sandals were a bit much…"

Yeah. She supposed she did look good, but that did not make her inconspicuous at all. But then again, Anko had never been one to lay low. Her methods were more along the line of "Look at me, fuckers, I'm alive". So she did the only thing she could and acted as confidently as she possibly could while Genma steered them through the village. Even then, she was pretty sure Anko was observing them from somewhere up and laughing her head off.

-:-

Itachi frowned. This was a regular occurrence for him, but his frown was even more pronounced that usual. Mikoto glanced at her son from the kitchen. She shook her head ruefully. In that mood of his, even Sasuke had not managed to lift his spirits. She knew that trait of his had been handed down from her husband and, by experience, knew it was better to leave him alone. He would eventually work out whatever it was that troubled him and then do something about it. Although, she thought with a small, secretive smile, she had a pretty good idea what his problem was about. Or more to the fact, _who_ it was about.

_Good luck, my son. She's worth it._

A few moments later, Itachi's head snapped up as he sensed the very person he had been thinking about approaching the house. She glanced at him once more, her eyes swimming with amusement as she saw him visibly restrain himself from going out to meet the elusive medic. To an outsider, he looked he usual calm self, but to her trained eye, some elements aroused her suspicion.

The front door opened and the soft pitter-patter of the pink-haired child's footsteps stopped for a moment as she took off her shoes.

A moment later, after a greeting from all parties, Sakura appeared in the kitchen. Mikoto's hands stilled instantly in midair, knife poised above the daikon she had been previously cutting. Her eyes widened as she took in the young girl's attire.

"Sensei…You've got a snake on your face…"

With those few words, a blur detached itself from the table and reappeared almost instantly at their side. At the movement, the snake lifted its head from the top of Sakura's and looked at the new arrival with hooded eyes.

"Ah. The Uchiha prodigy. Hello."

Itachi stared. And stared. And stared some more.

"Sensei…_Why_ do you have a snake over your eyes?"

"Ano…"

"I exist, thank you very much," snarked the snake, coiling a bit more tightly around the girl's head. "I've been summoned to replace this girl here's blindfold today. _That's_ why I'm curled around her face. By the way, the top of your head is very comfortable to lie on, little one," continued the reptile, using the end of its tail to pat Sakura gently.

"Eeeeh…Thanks, I guess?" replied the girl uncertainly.

Mikoto's knife resumed its hurried pace, cutting the daikon faster than before.

"So you've met Mitarashi-san. What is she up to, nowadays?" she asked calmly, as though she hadn't stopped and stared just moments before.

"Ah, um, she is well. I think. She was…quite enthusiastic about dressing me up. I garnered much attention on my way here, though I think much of it was because of my new…accessory," the girl trailed off.

"Tsss…The name'sss Mataku," hissed the brindled snake, curling a bit tighter around Sakura's head and waving its tail menacingly. It whipped its tail around and smacked her on the side of the head warningly. "I am male and I am cccccertainly _not_ an accesssssory," it hissed.

"Hai, hai. But for all your snarkiness, you're rather fond of me," pointed out the medic with a little smirk.

"Fond? What gave you that idea?" asked the snake with a pompous huff.

"Well," said Sakura, prodding the huffy creature amicably, "if you truly could not suffer me, you would have dismissed yourself long before now. You've not done so, thus I deduce that you quite like me. You did, after all, scare all the villagers on my way here, so you surely have had your fun."

The snake hissed but didn't contradict her, choosing to settle more comfortably on top of her head.

"Think what you mussst, human."

With that, the snake closed its eyes and ignored the outside world. Sakura smiled to herself and turned to the two Uchiha.

"Sorry for not being here this morning. I hope I didn't cause you any undue disagreement."

"Oh, we got your message, so we didn't overly worry," said Mikoto, risking a glance at her eldest son. "However, I do wonder what you have been up to. Where did you meet Mitarashi-san?"

"Ah, I ended up drinking a lot yesterday. Or was it this morning? Anyway, I slept at Genma-san's and she dropped in. She seemed to have much fun dressing me up as a miniature version of herself. I wonder why people like to act like I'm a doll."

There was something that sounded very much like "Because you are cute" coming from the direction of the genius, but when she turned to him, it seemed that he had not been the one to speak. She did not realize Mikoto hid a smile as she continued to chop her daikon.

-:-

"Walk with me, sensei."

"Itachi-san…"

"Please. I ask only for a walk, sensei. Please grant me this one favour."

Sakura bit her lip, slowly and hesitantly putting down her scroll. She knew it was not a good idea. Going along with him would just encourage him further. Yet he was also a little boy, and a cute one at that when he acted petulant like a boy his age. And as someone who had once had a crush on his younger brother, she was on slippery grounds.

"Itachi-san, you know…"

"I know, sensei," he replied immediately. "Please."

With a long-suffering sigh, Sakura closed her scroll and carefully put it back in her bag. With as much of a smile as he was willing to show, Itachi extended his hand to her. His smile widened as she accepted his help to stand up.

Looking at them leave, Mikoto smiled knowingly to herself. Itachi would win her still.

"Okaa-san? Where's nii-san goin'?"

And now Sasuke was pouting, eyes darkening. He looked at her, arms crossed over his chest, and grumbled that he was abandoned.

"Your nii-san has something important to do," explained Mikoto gently. "Something that you can't help him with."

"But Sakura-chan-sensei can?" asked Sasuke, pout deepening as his mother laughed amusedly at his words.

"Indeed, Sasuke-chan. She may be the only one who can help him with that issue," she said, chuckling to herself.

-:-

"What did you want to talk about?" asked Sakura once they had wandered into a deserted training grounds.

"Why do you think I want to talk about something?" asked Itachi, turning his head to look at her properly.

Sakura stopped walking and gestured to the empty surroundings.

"Come on, Itachi-san. If you wanted to take a walk, we didn't _have_ to come here. This place is deserted and secluded. Obviously, you want to say something to me in private."

Itachi walked a few steps away from her, eyes unfocusing. She patiently waited for him to talk, knowing he liked to take his time to choose the right words. She thus sat down on a rock and put her hands calmly on her thighs. In the end, she didn't wait as long as she thought she would have to. Itachi whirled around, face serious.

"You know, sensei, there are other things to do in a place like this than talk, although you are right, I do want to say something. Sensei, I have thought long, but it seems that in the end, I cannot accept your words."

"My—? Oh."

Realization felt heavy. Very heavy. She rubbed her arms in embarrassment, averting her face reflexively.

"I…Itachi-san…I…"

While she floundered, Itachi approached her and stood before her confidently, his words sounding formal with the weight of tradition.

"Sensei, you know me better than anyone. I, Uchiha Itachi, formally wish to court you, for I shall have no other."

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Dadida. No worries, I won't suddenly have them sex each other up (come on, they're only nine yet!) but they definitely will have some romance going on between them. Once Itachi manages to convince Sakura. And we all know he can be persistent. On a last note, please keep in mind that everything I write, I write for a reason. Just a forewarning.


	32. To Court or not to Court

Welcome back! Hope you enjoy this chapter! Well, fans of Genma should appreciate it, though I admit I did make fun of him…

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He sure sounded serious, but even for him, that was a bit precocious.

"That is…impossible."

Itachi didn't even blink at Sakura's words. He had expected them, after all. But the fact that she had said it was impossible, rather than she didn't want to, gave him some hope. And with that came an idea.

"Sakura-sensei. If you know me as well as you seem to do, you know that I can be very patient and very persistent."

Oh, she knew that. She knew that very well. She had seen proof of that in her time.

"I can't! Don't you understand?" she asked, getting desperate.

"You can't, not won't. That gives me a chance to win you over, sensei."

Slowly, carefully, he approached her and encircled her shoulders with his arms, getting her closer to him. She didn't resist, letting herself be pulled flush against his chest.

"Please don't do this," she begged into his shirt. "Don't do this."

"Sensei…You are the only one who understands how much I want peace. Because you want the exact same thing. I feel at ease with you, like I should be with everybody else. But more than that, I appreciate you as a person. You are someone I want to spend the rest of my life discovering day after day."

"Itachi-san…"

This was becoming so hard, so utterly difficult. He _was_ a good person, and she knew that very well…

"Spar with me."

"Excuse me?"

Maybe she was missing a few brain cells, but she couldn't seem to grasp where that came from. She had a feeling her jaw was hanging somewhere in the vicinity of her toes.

"I know you well enough that I know you are strong and would not accept my proposal so easily. Thus my wager: if I beat you in a fight, accept my proposal."

"What if you don't win?" she asked after a long moment.

"Then I'll teach you one of my family's jutsu."

Knowing him, he was very well capable of doing just as he had said. With a rueful smile, Sakura nodded in agreement.

"Alright. _One_ fight. Only one. And you won't complain if you don't win against me."

"That is fair. But even _if_ I lose, I'll continue to ask until I win."

With a heavy sigh that eased some tension off of her shoulders, the medic gently pushed away from the genius' chest.

"Let's do this, then. Weapons?"

"I suggest hand-to-hand. I don't think you've brought any weapons."

She bit off some comment about her fists being weapons enough and nodded once more.

And with a bow that seemed more formal than any he had ever given her, Itachi lowered his head to the medic.

-:-

_Why did I ever accept to spar against Uchiha Itachi of all people? _thought Sakura, panting. But her blood was singing and she knew that she couldn't fool herself. Fighting against such an opponent—without fearing for her life, mind you—gave her more of a thrill than she had felt in…she didn't know how long. Fighting was therapeutic. Fighting against Itachi was therapeutic. And fighting against someone as imaginative and strong as Itachi made her feel more alive than ever.

She felt a disturbance in the genjutsu she had been using to hide her position from the very person she had been thinking about.

_Oops. Back to the present._

It was not good to get lost in one's thoughts when in the middle of a fight, even if that wasn't a fight to the death. Especially when it was against a persistent genius. And _especially_ when that persistent genius was Uchiha Itachi.

She darted away quickly, spinning a web of chakra strings behind her as she went. Itachi cut them down quickly, but the time he spent cutting them gave Sakura an opportunity to sneak up on him. She managed to land a lucky punch before he rounded on her and blew a fireball her way.

Barely keeping herself from yelping, Sakura jumped away. Straight into the path of a kick. As she skidded across the forest floor, she thought to herself that she definitely wouldn't win that way. She had to take advantage of his weakness. From his file, she knew that the only point she could use against him was his stamina. Except that she hadn't seriously trained in a while.

She ran away, enticing him to follow her. Hopefully, he wouldn't realize that she intended to tire him out before it was too late.

-:-

Shisui whistled to himself as he sauntered into training grounds 26. Life was good, really. He was going to win that new shuriken set he had been ogling for a month.

_Hell yeah! That Aburame stands no chance against me!_

He was so going to win that spar.

And then he was tackled to the ground by an excited girl with pastel hair.

"Whoa! Sensei! Where did you come from?" he asked curiously, half-stunned.

"Hm…Not far. Hey, Shisui-kun, do you like me?" asked the little ball of energy with a bright smile.

"What kind of a question is that?" chuckled the young Uchiha. "Of course I do! And you know that! Is that the first signs of what we commonly call feminine manipulation?" he asked amusedly, putting his hands behind his head as she sat comfortably on his stomach.

"You _would_ know, wouldn't you?" retorted Sakura, lips hinting at a smirk. "But no, that would be me wheedling a favour out of you. So will you help this charming self of mine? In exchange, I'll give you a most efficient burn salve."

"Well, if you say it like that… How can I refuse? Especially if a lady friend of mine asks? Ask away, sensei, but I hope this won't take long, 'cause I've got an appointment soon."

"Oho. A date?" asked Sakura with a growing smirk.

"Unfortunately, nope. Just a bet to win. But the Aburame I'm meeting is kinda anal on time."

"Well, this'll just take a minute. Put your hand here, and then your arm here…"

So concentrated was he on the words of the girl that he failed to register the growing chakra signature.

And then he heard the most frigid voice he could have ever imagined. And it froze his blood in his veins.

"Shisui. _What_. Are. You. Doing."

His wide eyes met the crimson ones of his little cousin. Whose anger didn't seem so little.

He looked down and mentally cursed as he saw the position Sakura had put them in. no doubt that to his cousin, it looked like he was trying to extort information out of her. After all, he did have a kunai pressed to her jugular.

"Wait…Listen to me…" he tried, letting his arms fall back to his sides. He didn't even protest when Sakura snatched the kunai out of his lax grip.

"Itachi-san…He threatened me…He wants to know when the next Icha Icha will be out, and he didn't listen when I told him I didn't know…" explained Sakura, slowly getting closer to the younger cousin.

Itachi turned angry eyes away from Shisui for a moment before glaring at him once more as he saw the fearful expression on the medic's face.

"Your actions are shameful," enunciated Itachi in a calmness only found when he was at his angriest. Shisui gulped nervously. He had a feeling he would not be able to stand when his sparring partner came along.

And then the very person who had condemned him saved him. And even Itachi looked surprised. Itachi, the one he had always thought could never be surprised by anything—or just knew too well how to put on a poker face.

"I win, Itachi-san," whispered Sakura in said Uchiha's ear, pressing the tip of her stolen kunai gently but firmly under the male's chin. "You were too easily fooled. Really, such an easy distraction…I believe this is my win. And thus you owe me a jutsu, I think?"

Shisui cracked up at the utterly frustrated look on his cousin's face—which would be, for any non-Uchiha, a simple frown. It was the first time he was seeing it.

"Indeed, it is your win, Sakura-sensei," agreed Itachi. The loss, however, was lessened by the knowledge that they would spend time together as he taught her the jutsu he had promised her. Besides…he _had_ said before that he would continue to ask her until he won or she said yes.

-:-

"So you lost, my son. Still, you don't seem as down as I would have expected you to be," remarked Mikoto. Nothing could escape her motherly eyes.

"Losing once in a while isn't so bad, okaa-san. There are perks to losing, too," replied Itachi, putting on his sandals.

"Ah. So that's why you're going out. Well, you're still young. That means you have more time to win her over."

Itachi smiled at her briefly. He would take the comment to heart, for he had every intention to do just what his mother had guessed.

-:-

Blocks away, Sakura poured over scrolls. Or at least, that's what she had been doing until a panicked senbon-sucking shinobi burst through the library doors, raced across the entire length of the building and skidded to a stop in front of her. He grabbed her arms, screaming at her to save him, and she raised an eyebrow as she realized that there was a trail of kunai stuck in the floor exactly where he had run.

"Okay, whose husband did you piss off?" she asked idly, patting his arm gently.

"Your father, that's who!" he yelled hoarsely, looking around in panicked paranoia. "Kakashi-san warned him of what happened a few days ago, and now he's spent the better part of the morning hunting me down and using me as target practice!" he finished in a mock whisper.

"Oh. Good."

Her calm tone made Genma stop short and look at her incredulously.

"Good? _Good_? That's all you've got to say? He's trying to skewer me alive and that's _good_?"

"Eh? Oh, sorry, that's not what I meant. It's just that it saves me the trouble of having to look for him. I wanted to see him."

"Well, before you have your family reunion, could you please get him to stop trying to kill me?" he yelled in outrage.

"Hm, good point. Now just move a little to the left," she said, gently moving him in that direction and, coincidently, in front of the window. Seconds later, a kunai broke said window, heading straight for the man's groin. Sakura snatched it from midair, receiving a 'Thanks' as soon as Genma had stopped screaming. She pried him off of her back and went to the window. Sticking her head out from it once she opened it, she hollered, "Jiji! Get your ass in here right now! And get your mind out of the gutter, I'd have killed him myself if he had dared to lay a hand on me!"

A moment later, a sheepish Sannin rubbed the back of his head nervously while the pinkette tapped her foot impatiently.

"You've almost made me wait. Now what is this I hear about hunting Genma-san?" she asked dangerously.

Jiraiya suddenly had a vision of Tsunade with the same expression on her face. Plus eyes. But somehow, even without being able to glare at him properly, she managed to terrify him. Sometimes, he felt like it was a bad idea to ever let Tsunade meet Sakura.

"But I heard he had slept with you!" he tried to explain pitifully. "In the same bed!"

Crossing her arms and drumming her fingers on her arms, Sakura snorted inelegantly.

"'Cause you've never done worse," she replied sarcastically. "Besides, don't you think I'm a bit too young to be involved in such matters as sex?"

"But Sakura-chan! There are lolicons just waiting for sweet girls like you to turn the corner to kidnap you and do so many bad things! And if you are old enough to get a fiancé, which I do not approve of, by the way…"

"Wait. How do you even know about that? Are you spying on me?" asked Sakura incredulously.

"Iie. I informed him of my intention of courting you," came a calm voice from a small ways to their left. And sure enough, when they turned their head, there was Itachi.


	33. A Day's Efforts

Sorry for the wait, I know I should have posted this yesterday, but I wasn't finished writing it. Sorry, but RL was more important. Well, my date was. Now that I'm sober, I've managed to finish this, so it's still fresh! FYI, at this point in time Sakura and Itachi are 9 and yes, Itachi will eventually woo Sakura. Give it time. As for Jiraiya…I thought it would be ironic to see him overreact when someone's wooing his daughter while he does worse with all the women he meets. For the rest…you'll have to see. Wouldn't want to spoil the fun.

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_Not again…_groaned Sakura mentally. Turning to Jiraiya, she said firmly, "The issue has been dealt with. We are not engaged."

"Yet." supplied Itachi helpfully. "It has been agreed upon that I could ask her again at any time and however many times I wish to."

_Yeah. I know there won't always be a Shisui there to distract him. What worked once won't work again, knowing that damn genius._

In the silence that ensued, only Genma's low whistle could be heard.

"Wow, sensei, you've managed to attract the icicle himself? You're amazing! But why did you reject the heir of one of the most ancient and powerful clans in Konoha?"

Immediately, she rounded on him.

"You, not one more word if you don't want me to actually do what jiji tried to. My reasons are my own. Now shoo."

With a mischievous smile and a salute, the shinobi did just that. Sakura rubbed her temples tiredly. She should have sworn him to secret. She had a feeling the news would be all over Konoha before the end of the day. After all, Genma was his generation's version of Ino. With a sigh, she turned to Itachi.

"Itachi-san, will you excuse us? There are things I must speak about with my father."

"Of course, sensei," replied the Uchiha obligingly in his usual polite manner. "I will be training if you're looking for me."

Sakura directed a thankful smile at him, grateful that he was not being difficult. Although, knowing him, he had already analyzed the possibilities and determined this course of action was the surest one for his plans to come to fruition. She turned to Jiraiya and took his hand in hers, tugging on it lightly to make him follow her.

"Let's walk, shall we?" she asked gently.

-:-

In a ninja village, it was quite hard to keep absolutely everyone from hearing a secret. So since Sakura wanted to make sure nobody heard their conversation, she headed for the one place she knew they wouldn't be overheard, aka the Forest of Death. Of course, since she didn't want to spend her time taking out potential dangers, she jumped into a large tree as soon as she deemed it enough secluded and quickly set up a few traps around, followed by a privacy jutsu that would keep anyone around from hearing them—there were perks to having been the Hokage's apprentice at times like these.

Meanwhile, Jiraiya sat comfortably in the tree and waited for her to finish her preparations.

"Hey, jiji…I need your help…"

With a fatherly smile, the Sannin replied, "So I've gathered…"

With a sigh, Sakura sat down in front of him and took out a scroll from her bag. Without a word, she handed it to him, only explaining at his questioning look that he would understand once he read it.

Jiraiya seriously read the scroll, going over some parts twice and even thrice. He looked carefully at the diagrams, rubbed the back of his head, and looked up at her.

"Well, this is very detailed, Sakura-chan," he said slowly once he was done reading the scroll.

"Hm…That's only a copy of the original, which was the result of several sleepless nights. I spent much time thinking about this," she replied tiredly. Even creating the scroll with the help of clones had taken a lot of time and energy.

"So…You plan on creating a medical village. And I noticed you thought quite a bit about the various jutsu needed to make sure privacy and discretion were respected."

"Hai. I thought you could write the necessary seals, so instead of using a jutsu every time I need one, I could just activate the corresponding seal. Could you do that?"

He observed her with scrutinizing eyes. He could see how important this was to her and could understand her idea. If she could create a medical village, it would benefit everybody. The only thing he was afraid of was if someone with less scruples than her tried to use her village to target some of the ninja who came there to be healed or take control of the village and use it to influence politics in the Hidden Countries.

"Hai. I'll help you. But really, that scroll is priceless. How did you manage to gather all that information, and especially so quickly? You didn't leave anything out. You didn't seem to forget even a single point in that village blueprint of yours."

_Of course. That's 'cause as Shishou's apprentice, I've seen how to run a village and what is essential to one._

Still, even she had to admit she had done a good job on her scroll.

"I'm just that good," she joked. "Ne, jiji, will you promise me one thing?"

Jiraiya cocked his head at her, waiting for her to be more explicit.

"If anything befalls me…Will you keep this scroll safe until you find someone worthy to receive it and continue my dream?"

She hoped she didn't sound too ominous. However, it was not the first time she alluded to her death and so she aroused suspicions in him. And so she mentally winced as soon as he frowned in concern.

"Sakura-chan…Are you dying?"

"What? Of course not!" she exclaimed instantly.

"Then you're not ill or anything?" he asked, looking her up and down as though trying to see any sign of illness.

_Oh my…And he even sounds serious. Dead serious._

"I'm not! But will you still keep that scroll, _please_?" she asked, stressing the last word.

"Yeah. I'll do that. You spent so much time and energy on it that it would be a shame to let your efforts go to waste if anything happened to you."

"Great. Thanks. Now I've got something to talk to you about."

"Something else?" he joked lightly to dissipate the earlier tension. "What could be as important as the creation of your medical village?

"A boy, very young still, who carries burdens too heavy for his shoulders…You know which boy I'm talking about, jiji, for you've been watching him for a while now…And don't even think about denying it."

-:-

"There's really nothing like Ichiraku's ramen!" cried Naruto, smacking his lips happily. "Hey, how much do I owe you?" he asked loudly as Teuchi served another customer at the other side of the counter. He reached into his pockets and withdrew his trademark frog purse, which unfortunately felt a bit too light to cover the entirety of his expanses.

"Hey, any chance of you giving me a discount?" he asked with a hopeful look at the owner, who chuckled and nodded. The young boy whooped happily at the words.

Up on a rooftop, hiding from all but fellow ninja—who raised an eyebrow but knew better than to say anything—Sakura turned her head in Jiraiya's direction and raised an eyebrow herself as if to say, 'Well?'.

Jiraiya stayed silent.

With a huff, Sakura told him to stay put and watch, then jumped down and made her way across the street.

"Heya, Naruto-kun!" she called brightly.

The blonde looked up from his meal instantly. At her sight, he jumped up from his seat, a large smile stretching his lips.

"Sakura-nee-sensei!"

She sat down next to him smartly, ordering a bowl of ramen for herself. While they waited for her order—and his new one—to arrive, she listened to him ramble on and on about his day so far and, as soon as there was a lull in the "conversation", took his purse from where it was innocently resting on the counter. She twirled it in her hands speculatively, trailing a finger across its surface.

"Ne, Naruto-kun…Why's your purse in the shape of a frog? Surely there were other types when you bought it?"

Naruto took a long slurp of ramen from his new bowl. He made a satisfied sound at the back of his throat.

"Yeah! But that one was my favourite!"

"A frog? I would have thought there were cooler animals to choose from," she remarked calmly.

"Frogs are the best! My best friend's a frog, too!"

Well, that was new. At least, she had never heard him admit it before, even though she had long suspected as much. After all, Jiraiya could not have left Naruto completely alone in Konoha. She hovered closer to him, putting her head in her hands in curiosity.

"Your best friend?" she asked in an open tone she used solely to make people more inclined to confide in her.

"Yeah! But people can't see him. He only speaks to me!"

She turned her head in direction of a certain rooftop where she knew her old man was spying on them and tilted her head. She did not need to see to know that he was wincing.

_Even if you asked one of your summons to keep an eye on him and keep hidden from everyone else under a genjutsu, it's nowhere near enough, jiji. But at least you tried. Unlike some fools trying to run this village._

"Ne, Naruto-kun, do you eat as many vegetables as I told you you should?"

Wincing openly, Naruto surreptitiously tried to slide out of his seat, planning a quick escape that was halted immediately as she grabbed him by the scruff of his clothes. Then his wide, innocent blue eyes met her saccharinely sweet smile. He gulped nervously.

_Seems that when the cat's away, the mice come out to play, huh?_

-:-

Playing shogi against two geniuses—consecutively, of course, not at the same time, for that would have been certain death for anybody—was positively exhausting. She was losing. Miserably.

"Your mind is not on the game, Sakura-sensei," noted Shikaku in a bored tone that masked the concern he actually felt. He had no wish to lose his shoji partner. And she was much more tolerable than the people he was used to. For one, she didn't aggravate him.

"You're right, Shikaku-san," she sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid I have too much on my mind at the moment."

Oh yeah. The day was taking its toll on her. Already it was night. The Nara had been quite hospitable and had invited her to dine with them, which she had done as soon as her game with Shikamaru had ended.

"Let us end this game here, then," said the older ninja, getting up lazily and extending a hand to her, which she took gingerly. "Follow me, sensei."

"Shikaku-san?" she asked in curiosity.

"This may take your mind off your worries. That is my hope," he said calmly, leading her surely down a path he had taken many times in the past.

-:-

There was something to be said about waiting for someone you cared about. And Jiraiya was certainly not used to doing so.

"Jiraiya-sama, I come with a summons from Nara Shikaku-sama."

He twirled around, stopping his urgent pacing. That voice…Of course. A Nara. Was their laziness a genetic trait or something? The man was slouching worse than Kakashi!

He knew it was irrational to fret, but he still ran a bit faster than he usually would have to get to the Nara estate. He was greeted there by another Nara who led him into the woods, where apparently Shikaku and Sakura were at the moment.

And then he saw her in a clearing. Sleeping, quite innocently, against a doe, with several fawns around her. Her petite form was illuminated by the clear moon's light. She looked much too angelic, lying there with a relaxed, unguarded expression on her face.

Shikaku calmly walked around the scene up to him, hands in his pockets.

"Thank the Kami no one else is here to see this, or I'd have to beat guys away from her with a stick," he muttered.

"Hn. How troublesome."

_Indeed._

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Last note before you review (hint hint): I don't intend on writing about Sakura's influence on the future she left behind, and I doubt I'll change my mind. This will stay strictly in the past. Thanks, folks!


	34. To Ruin Someone's Day

Thanks for your reviews, people, they always make me so happy. And flattered that you would think enough of this story to review it. Here's some more political stuff for you intrigue lovers!

By the way, if you want to understand the way I explored time travel in this fic, go read hugsfortheneedy's review for chapter 33. It's a good summarization.

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The next day, Jiraiya woke up to find Sakura was already up. She was carefully grinding her ink stone; it had been the slight noise that had woken him up. At his movement, she turned her head in his direction and smiled slightly.

"Good morning, jiji. Have you slept well?" she asked amicably.

He walked over to her, putting on his shirt as he went, and nodded to her.

"Hai. And you?"

"I did, thank you."

Jiraiya glanced at the sky outside the window; his eyebrows raised a notch.

"Wow. You're up early, child of mine."

"Hmm," murmured Sakura noncommittally. "I did have things to do this morning. Satsuki-chan sent me a new letter to ask me when I was coming back and I've been informed that my apprentice awaits me in the next few days, for a patient he treated is out of danger, but he can't quite heal the injury, so I have to come back soon."

"Oh. Are you leaving today?" asked Jiraiya, going to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of milk, which he promptly spat out with a grimace.

"Oh yeah, watch out for the milk. It's been sitting in the fridge since the last time you came here," she said, not turning around from her work to look at his outraged face.

"Couldn't you have warned me beforehand?"

"Where would the fun be in that?" she answered coyly.

"Thanks a bunch," he replied dryly, snatching an onigiri from the plate at the center of the table and receiving an annoyed "Hey!" at the move. She lightly slapped his wrist, pulling a face.

"You didn't ask for permission, jiji. Play nice."

"Sorry," he replied good-naturedly. "Oh Sakura-sama, may I _please_ have a bite of this undoubtedly delicious onigiri?"

With a false haughty tone that was hard to maintain due to the laughter that was seconds away from shaking her frame, she said, "You may help yourself to one of my masterpieces, oh good lad."

"Thank you so much, oh fair lady," said Jiraiya with flair before taking a large bite of his onigiri. "That being said, what do you intend to do today?"

Sakura plunged her brush in her newly-made ink and began to carefully trace the first kanji of her letter to Satsuki.

"Oh, just planning to go screw a few people's day, that's all," she said airily, leaving him to choke on his snack, eyes wide in disbelief.

_And she sounds like she means it. Whoever her preys are, I wouldn't want to be in their shoes today._

-:-

The uneasy feeling that had settled in Jiraiya's stomach ever since Sakura had announced that she was going to ruin some poor souls' day suddenly amplified as she led them in direction of the Hokage Tower. So much so that he almost felt nauseous.

"Sakura-chan…We wouldn't happen to be going to see the Hokage, would we?" he asked uncertainly.

"We sure are. And he's not the only one I'm going to rattle up, let me assure you of that."

He actually stopped walking at that as he thought of who else she could be thinking about annoying.

"Wait…who else are you going to see?" he asked, jogging to catch up with her.

"You'll see, jiji. Oh, you'll see real soon," she finished with a sadistic smile.

They entered the tower together, giving their name and the object of their visit—aka seeing the Hokage. Although Sakura itched to write 'Spoil the Hokage's day'. Common sense halted her hand, though, at the last minute. She was pretty sure it would not be looked upon kindly. And so they waited to be shown the way in, Jiraiya feeling decidedly more unsettled and uncomfortable than Sakura who merely took a scroll out of her bag and began to read it patiently. He chanced a glance at it only to grimace at the medical mumbo-jumbo.

"Isn't that boring to read?" he asked after a long moment.

"Not for me. Besides, if I want to establish my village without any strife from the daimyo who owns the lands I live on, I need to heal his brain-damaged daughter within…a little less than five years now. I've got no time to lose."

"Is it really that hard to do?" he asked, eyes turning to look at a pretty lady who walked past them.

"The brain is a complex matter. Maybe I should examine yours too, when I have the chance. I'm pretty sure your perverseness could be healed. Or at least I could understand where it stems from," she said slyly.

He wrenched his eyes away from the sight of the woman's nicely-shaped bum with a blush as she added that for a man who was worried about her virginity, he sure didn't have the same line of thought when it came to other females.

Finally, Sakura was called and she put her scroll back in her bag. Jiraiya followed her in Sarutobi's office, greeting his old teacher warmly. The Sandaime Hokage gestured for them to take a seat and sat down himself, inquiring as to the reason of their visit.

"Actually, Hokage-sama, I'm here because I want you to approve of my medical village. By now, you should have heard that I am trying to create a neutral village that would accept any patient. I intend to make both civilian and ninja healing coexist in this village. And before you ask, I _know_ that the installations required for civilian medicine would cost a lot of money, which is why I intend to send the people of my village on missions, such as accompanying a medic into another country, to gain funds. However, I need some funds to start, for my aides can only do so much at present. Will you lend me enough money to make that village come to life, knowing that while you'll be getting your money back, you won't have any sway over the management of my village?"

Sarutobi let his breath, which he had been holding since the beginning of her tirade, swoosh out of him as he ensconced himself deeper into his chair.

"Wow."

He had not expected the whole financial part, that was for sure. If it had just been about giving her support in her endeavours, he would have accepted, but as it was…

"Sakura-sensei, I'm going to have to ask the council to vote on that issue, as it does not concern solely this village's military forces but also the treasury, which concerns the civilian populace as well."

And then Jiraiya stifled a groan, as he realized that the very people Sakura had alluded to were the most influential and, consequentially, the most pain-in-the-ass people of the village. And then he _really_ groaned as he came to realize that _he_ would have to attend too. He wondered if he could escape to the women's baths now, or if it was already too late to do so.

-:-

Sakura could feel a headache coming on, and she hadn't even started to talk yet. As of yet, the council members had not stopped bickering ever since they had been called. The moment they had sat down, they had started arguing about being called in the first place, about having better things to do, about _who_ had the most important things to do, about who had the most important obligations to fulfill, about who had the most power, and so on and so forth.

And she was pissed.

"Fucking hell, will you snobs just _shut up_?" she yelled.

Silence formed for but a moment before the outraged members of the civilian population turned their ire against her, while the shinobi had enough intelligence to shut up and let things develop on their own. After all, they had been the ones to hear the most about her abilities, which at least gave her some credibility in their eyes.

"You _will_ shut up or I'll make you. I swear I'll do it," she growled dangerously, and the whole group suddenly was reminded of Tsunade and her temper.

A lone civilian glared at her and opened his mouth, which he quickly closed as she took a kunai out of nowhere and innocently began to twirl it between her fingers. She smirked sadistically and purred "Good choice" at him.

Then she stood up, dusted herself off melodramatically, and 'looked' at each of the council members slowly and methodically, not forgetting a single one. It sent shivers down the spines of the civilians as they realized she knew exactly where they were and thus could probably use that kunai of hers against any one of them.

"Gents, ladies, the reason I have appeared before you today is so that I could appeal to you about a proposition. As some of you may know, I am neutral, and this neutrality of mine, combined with my oath as a medic, has led me to creating a medical village. In this village, all medics will be bound by a privacy oath. Furthermore, it is my intention to add seals in every room that will act as a genjutsu so that the identity of the patient is not revealed. Most importantly, _everyone_ will be accepted as a patient, be they civilian or ninja, and wherever they come from will not matter. All will be treated equally and won't have to pay for treatment. I do need some funds in order to make that village possible, however. Thus I ask you for a loan."

A few of the council members snickered, a few stayed impassive, a few looked at one another and started to discuss the idea in low tones. And at the center of it all, Sakura stayed standing, looking serious and determined as opposed to her usual cheery self. She knew that if her request was denied, she would have to work thrice as hard just to get the necessary subventions to start acquiring the medical equipment.

"If we do this, what guarantee do we have that we'll see our money again?" asked a particularly snobbish-looking old hag, receiving nods of approval from several people across the room.

"None except my word." She knew that in this adventure, she could not promise anything except that she would try her damnedest to make things happen as she envisioned them to be.

"Your word?" snorted the same old woman with her annoyingly shrill voice. "Your _word_ is not enough, little girl."

Sakura ground her teeth together to keep from spewing something untoward that would ruin her chances, and was happily surprised when Fugaku stood up, looking at her interlocutor with disdain.

"Sakura-sensei is as far from being a little girl as my eldest son is from being retarded. She is trustworthy. If she has no guarantor, the Uchiha clan will be hers."

In the stunned silence that ensued, nobody opened their mouth. And then Hyuuga Hiashi stood up and faced his long-time rival.

"How surprising, Uchiha-sama. Could you possibly have ulterior motives to endorse Sakura-sensei's loan? Access to a highly-qualified private medic, maybe?"

Sakura's cheeks turned red with anger, but her anger suddenly turned to embarrassment at Fugaku's retort.

"It is well-known by now that my heir has decided to court Sakura-sensei, who has proved herself as a strong and capable person worthy of respect. As such, it is only a matter of time before she becomes an Uchiha. It is thus only normal that the Uchiha clan gives its full support to a soon-to-be member. Not to do so would be dishonorable."

_Damn it, why does everyone assume I'm going to end up with Itachi-san? And why does Fugaku-sama accept it instead of fighting tooth and nail so that his son marries an Uchiha?_

Sakura stayed silent as people chatted rapidly, the buzz of excited conversation becoming louder as time passed.

And then she decided to use her trump card, seeing as how things didn't seem to be going anywhere.

"There are some things that you have done, that you have condoned, that go completely against this village's image. What would the citizens do if they knew that the very person they hate with all their soul is the son of the one they idolize? I wonder. Shall we find out? After all, _I'm_ not forced to keep your S-class secret; I'm not a member of this village."

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I know, I know, no Itachi. He'll be back, I promise.


	35. Revenge

Thanks for the reviews, guys! The sheer number of them for the last chapter astounded me! And of course Sakura wouldn't hurt Naruto in any way, but that's bluffing for you! Although she still has enough dirt on the village to make the Council members suffer. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

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There was a moment of tense silence. Jiraiya and Sarutobi looked at each other with horrified eyes. _They _knew what she was talking about, and they _knew_ shit was about to hit the fan.

"What?" finally asked a civilian oh so articulately.

"You guys are stupid. Blinded by your prejudices and wallowing in your self-pity. If, like me, you had to actually work your ass off to earn a living, you wouldn't be this way, 'cause you would actually have to get your head out of your ass to actually look at the people around you instead of looking down on them. I'd prefer to die than be like you. I may be blind, but I'm not unseeing. If _I_ could see the uncanny resemblance between Naruto-kun and the Yondaime Hokage, then you, who live in Konoha and get to see the Hokage Mountain every day, clearly don't know how to use your eyes. And believe me, if I were to announce your treatment of your idol's son to the world, I'm pretty sure your economy would drop by, oh…I'd say at least 30%. After all, most people look down on those who bully others, especially if those others are direct descendants of the one they owe their life to. I'm pretty sure many of your customers would choose to go to other villages instead."

Some people began to yell at her in outrage, others whispered that what she said couldn't possibly be true; no one was left unshaken.

"Oh, and by the way…Should anything happen to me, this will become public knowledge. Be sure of that."

"Are you actually blackmailing us?" asked a particularly sour-looking man incredulously.

"Oh no, don't worry. Blackmail implies having a victim and having that victim pay a certain amount regularly to a blackmailer. _I _ask for a _loan_. But I do promise to reveal your nasty little secret if you don't grant me that loan. Think of it as…collateral damage in case you think my guarantor is not enough."

Her smile was saccharine; Fugaku glared at the other council members, daring them to say that the Uchiha clan was not a good enough guarantor.

-:-

"Sensei…how did you manage to get the council members to glare at you more than the demon child in the course of a few hours?"

Sakura winced mentally and turned an innocent smile to Itachi that she was sure he could see through.

"Me? What makes you think _I _did anything?"

"Please, sensei. I know you."

She threw her hands up amusedly, clearly signifying that she was giving up the pretense.

"Alright, alright, so I _may_ have threatened 'em just a _little_ bit," she said, putting her thumb and forefinger an inch apart to show how little exactly.

"You threatened the council members?" he asked in as aghast a tone as he could use.

"I did, actually. Your father was great, you know. He supported me entirely. I'm afraid of the position that's gonna put him in, though. Especially with the Hyuuga clan. They're even more of sticklers to rules than your clan, so I think they're going to give you a hard time. I feel kinda bad for putting you in this position and leaving you to deal with the mess."

At that, Itachi smirked lightly.

"Hm. I think there will be more spars between our clan members than usual for a while, but it will just give us an occasion to prove to them that we are better ninja than them."

She punched his arm gently, chuckling about egos and arrogant people.

"I'm done. You look very mature, sensei."

Sakura put a hand to her head, feeling the hairdo he had created, and smiled.

"Thank you, Itachi-san. You are very talented."

Mikoto entered her dressing room and smiled as she saw them.

"Oh, Sakura-sensei, you look beautiful! Itachi-kun, you surpassed yourself today! Is this because she leaves today?"

"Hn. This is only a modest departure gift."

Despite his aloof tone, the slight glint in his eyes bespoke of satisfaction at the situation, for Sakura hadn't shied away from him when he had politely asked her if he could style her hair.

"I want to thank you for everything. And…I hope things with _that person_ are better now," said Sakura meaningfully to Itachi. She knew she couldn't hope to change Fugaku significantly in so little time, but with careful nurture, maybe the seeds she had planted could grow.

And then Sasuke walked in, pouting as much as he would allow himself to.

"Can't you stay a bit longer, Sakura-nee-sensei?"

She gave him a rueful smile, shaking her head negatively.

"Sorry, Sasuke-kun, but…I can't. Some people need me very much right now, more than here. Keep sending me letters, though, ne? And next time, I swear I'll spend more time with you. That's a promise."

Those last words sealed the deal; a brilliant smile lightened his face. Then he put on a poker face and nodded regally.

"That would be acceptable," he said in a serious voice.

Sakura and Mikoto hid amused smiles behind their hands, thinking of how cute Sasuke looked when he tried to imitate his father and older brother.

-:-

Tohru's head snapped up as he felt a familiar chakra signature flare close by.

"She's back!"

The chakra signature rapidly closed in, by which time everyone had been warned and was waiting more or less patiently for the medic to appear. And then they saw her, looking more brilliant than in their memories.

"Heya guys, missed me?" she asked with an affectionate smirk.

"'Kura-chan!"

And Satsuki jumped on her, sending her sprawling to the floor on her back with a whoosh and a thump.

"I'll take that as a yes," she wheezed from under the aristocrat's larger form. "Have you all been well?"

"Hai, sensei," replied Tohru, gently prying Satsuki off of her. "We had some patients, and the _nuke-nin_ managed to finish the house. And on your side?"

"Oh, I was successful alright. I managed to get funds to start the village, but I'll explain everything during the meal. What's more important is the patient you were talking about. Where is he?"

"Ah, he's in the third room to your right. He seemed fine when I began to heal him, but he's gotten worse, and I have no idea why," explained Tohru in frustration.

Sakura nodded pensively and strode to the room, knocking on the shoji door with contrasting gentleness before entering.

"Hello, my name is Sakura and I am here to check on you…"

-:-

Despite being aired and sunny, the room smelled of decay, illness, and death. The man was breathing with difficulty, each shallow breath reminding Sakura painfully that she could very well lose him. She put a warm blanket over him to ward off the slight autumnal chill and sat for a long moment next to him, thinking over the situation.

And then the slightest suspicion arose in her mind, and no matter how hard she tried to shy away from it, her instincts as a medic always came back to it. She gnawed on her lower lip, sighed loudly, and got up.

"Ishika-san, was there anybody else here when this patient's condition started to deteriorate?" she asked calmly as soon as she located him.

Tohru took a moment to think, then shook his head.

"Iie, sensei. The last patient left one or two days previously, so there was only him in the house. Is that relevant?"

Sakura's face darkened dangerously.

"_Very_. Come with me, I need your help."

Tohru nodded, sensing the seriousness of the situation, and jogged to catch up with her as she stalked out of the room.

She ordered him to take a blood sample as soon as they returned to her patient's room, and he obeyed her immediately with the swiftness of one who knew when to listen to orders. And so he quickly gathered the necessary blood in a vial and handed it to Sakura, but she shook her head without taking it from his hands.

"Tell me what you can see."

"Well…It seems normal…" he murmured, squinting at the viscous liquid.

Sakura frowned.

"Examine it closer. What about the viscosity? The colour? Is there anything swimming in it, like particles?"

Tohru brought the vial up in a ray of sunlight and put it closer to his eyes. He stared at it for a long moment, trying to see something, _anything_ that could confirm whatever it was that Sakura was thinking. And then he saw it. It was faint, but he didn't doubt his eyes.

"There's something slightly darker in that blood, but I've got no idea what it is."

He looked up, only to see a frightening expression on the pinkette's face, so dark that for once, he was afraid of her, for she was looking positively murderous.

"That would be the poison that is killing him," she growled dangerously.

"But…I'm sure he wasn't poisoned when he came here…" muttered Tohru pensively.

"Of course not. That patient who left just before you noticed the symptoms? _He's_ the one who _dared_ to poison this man in _my_ home!" she growled ferally.

"What?" he exclaimed, aghast.

"Oh, he won't get away with it, this I swear. I'll make him suffer for this. As soon as I heal this patient, I'll hunt him down like an animal," she promised darkly.

-:-

"Where's 'Kura-chan?" asked Satsuki in mild worry. "I haven't seen her in _two days!_" she whined.

Toranosuke and Tohru looked at each other meaningfully. For two days, they had made sure to keep Satsuki busy enough that she didn't have time to wonder where Sakura was, but even they knew it couldn't last forever. Sooner or later, they wouldn't be able to keep Satsuki from wondering what had happened to her favourite pink-haired medic. They had hoped it would be later, though, for neither looked forward to disturbing the medic from her work. She hadn't stepped out of her cave since she had holed herself in there to recreate the poison two days ago, not even to eat, and somehow, they doubted she had slept a wink in that time.

She had seemed almost maniacal, lost in her own world, as she had descended the stairs from the house to the cave, clutching the vial of blood close to her chest as though it was the greatest treasure.

From time to time, they had tried to head down the stairs, inching closer to her slowly, but always had they found her muttering to herself in the dark, sitting on the floor with a paraphernalia of medical apparatuses forming a circle around her. And despite them leaving a plate of onigiri regularly on the ground in her vicinity, she never touched it, and every time they came back, the plate was left untouched in the same place they had left it. Despite knowing she didn't need light and that she could become so concentrated on something the world around her ceased to exist, they couldn't help but find the sight disturbing ad somewhat creepy.

However, just as they tried to deviate Satsuki's line of thoughts away from the dangerous subject, the very person they had been talking about marched up to them with feline grace and a more-than-sadistic smile on her face.

"Hello, people," she purred in a way that made shivers run down their spines in fear. "I am going to leave you alone for some time. I just have a little visit to make…"

"A visit, 'Kura-chan? To whom?" asked Satsuki excitedly, making the two males wonder if she had any preservation instincts at all.

"Oh, just to the nice man who left me this gift," answered Sakura, twirling a vial full of a reddish-brown liquid that Tohru immediately deduced was a replica of the poison that had been used on their patient. "I have to say thank you, it's only good manners to do so, ne?" she said, cocking her head to the side mock-innocently.

Satsuki's head bobbed in agreement while Tohru and Toranosuke gulped nervously.

"Oh, this is going to be a hunt I'm going to _thoroughly_ enjoy…"

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Yup, Sakura at her most sadistic. Great times ahead, people.

By the way, did you notice the theme of this story in there? ^^


	36. The Hunt

I've just learned that dancinfanz did a rec for this fic on youtube. Thanks a bunch, I hope you continue to read this, and I dedicate this chapter to you!

Hey, guys, I was wondering if any of you would feel up to doing some fanart for this story? I'd do it myself, but I frankly suck at drawing, so I'm forced to content myself with writing. Pretty please? As repayment, I could write a short story for you…

Now, you're gonna hate me for this chapter, but I didn't want to go straight for the kill. I wanted to make the chase somewhat realistic, so this chapter turned out into a filler, mostly. But I do promise some ass-kicking soon! All good things come to those who wait.

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Sakura's face was set in stone, which contrasted sharply with the way her emotions bubbled dangerously in her, ready to erupt at any time in a bout of violence. She ground her teeth in anger.

_It's been too long since he left, his trace has faded…That fucker!_

"Sensei…"

"Don't worry, Tachibana-san, _I_'m not the one who's gonna get hurt," she snarled. "I'll have to set _an example_."

Toranosuke scratched the back of his head in uneasiness.

"Yeah…Ano…Be…careful?"

Shaking his head, Tohru just asked what she intended to do first.

"I may not have a trace left, but I have the poison. And I know exactly where I can get information…"

-:-

The scorching wind of the desert forced the guards to shield their faces for a moment. When the burst of wind stopped, they looked back up and wondered when a figure had appeared in the distance.

Then the figure grew steadily closer and they distinguished a black top hat and frail shoulders covered by a completely black lab coat.

"Hey, isn't that the little sensei?" asked one of the guards to his companion.

"I think so."

It was soon confirmed as the newcomer came to a halt in front of them, face grim, her whole body radiating tension.

"I am aware that this is not the best time to come to Suna, since the Kazekage must still be angry at me, but I need to see Elder Chiyo," she said without preamble. "To avoid causing a stir, I will wait for her here. Please relay to her that I will wait however long I have to."

And so she crossed her legs, drew her coat closer around her, and hung her head slightly to ward off the bright sun.

-:-

She waited for a whole day under the blazing sun, then the cold moon, never moving a muscle, before a single figure walked out of the hidden village. She didn't look up when the figure stopped in front of her, neither acknowledging nor ignoring her visitor.

"You have come from far away and have waited for a whole day to see me, child. What is so important that you would wait this patiently without any guarantee that I would allow you to see me?"

For a long time, only the wind broke the silence. Then Sakura answered in a slightly hoarse voice, "Someone dared to go against the one rule I hold dear at my place. He came and poisoned one of my patients when I was away. I want to find that man."

"And what makes you think I can help with that?" asked the wizened old woman.

"I managed to extract the poison. At the very least, you should be able to recognize it and tell me who could have created it."

"Ne, sensei," replied the old woman lightly, "if, as you think, the culprit is a ninja of my village, what makes you think I'll sell him out?"

Sakura's face became more ensconced in shadows, if at all possible.

"That man is a nuke-nin, for one. And if you're able to identify him, I am willing to let you have him once I'm done with him," replied Sakura ominously.

The Elder didn't speak for a long moment, and Sakura knew that she was pondering over her next course of action. As such, she gave her a last nudge.

"I am certain it is not Akasuna no Sasori, for if it had been him, my patient, as well as my people, would be dead by now, so that should limit the number of suspects."

Chiyo nodded firmly, standing up fully, and regarded her with determined eyes.

"Alright, Sakura-sensei. I'll find the name of your poisoner. Please wait here for my return, so that your appearance does not disturb the ninja of this village. If I were you, I'd change into something lighter, though. You should have picked a white lab coat to get here."

"Blood doesn't show against black clothes, but don't worry about me. I will wait however long I have to, Chiyo-baa-sama," agreed Sakura with just as much determination.

A brief smile crossed the Elder's face before she disappeared back inside Suna.

And so Sakura waited for another day.

-:-

"Shirameki Kazuo. That's the name of the man you're looking for."

"Thank you, Chiyo-baa-sama. I owe you one," said Sakura, finally getting up after two days of sitting on top of a rock.

"Just get him, and I'll consider us even."

"Got it."

And just as easily, Sakura disappeared in the wind, heat and sand.

_Sorry, Gaara-kun…Even though I'm so close to you right now, I don't think it would have been right for me to see you in this condition…I don't want you to remember me as a murderous person. You deserve better from me._

-:-

_Shirameki Kazuo…_

It didn't take her long to find him in her Bingo book. And even less to remember everything there was to know about him, from his appearance to his techniques. And then the hunt really started.

She knew the general direction he had left in, thanks to Toranosuke and Tohru, but the trace had been stale when she had left, and so she resorted to screening the various villages and towns in that general direction in hopes of finding a word, a whisper about that man. And it was in the bar of a village that could barely call itself one that she found the lead she was looking for.

-:-

Rain was pouring down in spades when the door to the shabby establishment opened. The heads of the few customers turned to look at the newcomer, expecting to see one of the villagers who had been booted out of his house by his wife. Their bleary, bloodshot eyes bulged as they saw a small, frail girl with a too-big hat stroll in confidently. She marched to the bar, sat down on a stool primly, and put on her most innocent air.

"Ne, nii-tan," she said with a small, embarrassed smile at the bartender, "I'm looking for my nii-chan. He's been gone for sooo long, and now kaa-chan's _real_ sick, and the doc said she'll die soon, and I have to find him before that! Kaa-chan said she wants to see him before she dies, nii-tan! Please, have you seen him?" she asked tearfully, looking at the man with wide henged eyes.

The bartender looked at her, heart melting at the sight of the pitiful young girl, and Sakura smirked mentally.

_Gotcha! Time for the final blow!_

She took her hat in her dainty little hands and looked at the burly man behind the counter just above the rim of the large hat.

"Onii-chan, he…that hat's the only thing he left me to remember him by…Please, nii-tan…if you've seen him…" she begged tearfully, clutching at his heartstrings.

"Sure, honey, but I don't know if he's come here. What's he look like?" he asked, setting a glass of water down in front of her.

"Well…He's very strong! And he's big! Kinda like you! But his face looks more like the onii-san's back there," she said, pointing at a man across the room, making the bartender follow her gesture with his eyes. "Eto…He's got black eyes, like mine, see? And…and purple hair!"

And then she looked at him expectantly, cute as only a guileless child can be—or a ninja pretending to be one.

"Well…I've seen a guy like that, but…it was at least two weeks ago, I think. He was headed for Niji, if I remember correctly."

"Waah! Thank you so much, nii-tan!" exclaimed Sakura with pink cheeks and a wide smile that she didn't have to fake, for she truly felt elation. The only thing she did refrain from was smirking like a shark.

She jumped off of her stool, put her hat back on her head, and with a last wave, ran out of the bar, heading straight for Niji.

-:-

In Niji, she did the same routine, with the appropriate adaptations to make sure she could not be traced there, and learned that he was heading now for Hisakata. And from there she learned that he had been sighted in Asahi in the upper quarters of the city. It seemed that she was lessening the distance between them significantly. Of course, that may be due to the fact that she was running solely on soldiers pills and not sleepy or resting like any sane person would. She could tell it was taking its toll on her body, but time was of the essence and she had no intention of letting her prey go.

_Asahi? He's closer than I thought…Maybe I have a chance to find him there before he leaves._

And so her sadistic smirk became more pronounced.

-:-

The lord of Asahi was a man who liked to be well thought of by his people and, more importantly, by the other lords. And he didn't trust the messengers he could send to ninja villages to remain inconspicuous enough that no one suspected him when a rival of his suddenly were to suddenly die. As such, he much preferred to have a nuke-nin arrested in his city once in a while and get him to do his dirty work for him discreetly. And if the man failed, his deeds could always be blamed on the fact that he was a nuke-nin for a reason.

"I take it your mission was successful?" he asked regally, motioning for his visitor to sit down as he went around his desk and sat on the lavish armchair behind it.

There was a harsh laugh, then Shirameki Kazuo dumped a scroll on the desk, sitting down lazily. He watched, bored, as the lord opened the scroll and scanned it quickly, at the end of which a satisfied grin rested on his face.

"What's in that anyway?" asked Kazuo. "I did as you asked and poisoned the ninja who was carrying it, so his death will look as though it was due to his injuries. No tracing it back to you. Though I wonder why you wanted this scroll."

The lord opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a bag full of clinking coins.

"This should be enough to satiate your curiosity," he answered firmly.

"Fair enough," replied Kazuo, getting to his feet. "Not that I don't enjoy your company, but it's not exactly safe for a man like me to stay in a place for too long. So I'm going to take the money and leave now, if you don't mind."

"Oh, but I _do_ mind," murmured a sweet voice from somewhere to his left.

The men's heads snapped around instantly in frightened surprise, only to see a young woman lounging lazily on the windowsill.

"Who are you?" asked Kazuo, brows furrowing as he tried to see the face of the woman, to no avail. With her head hung the way it was, the wide brim of her hat hid her features.

And then she looked up, revealing a youthful face hid partially by a blindfold and framed by pale pink tresses.

"I'm the owner of the house in which you tried to assassinate the ninja you stole that scroll from. And frankly, I am _pissed_."

"Impossible. Sakura-sensei is a kid," snarled Kazuo, hand going straight to his thigh, presumably to get a kunai or two.

"Yeah, feel honoured that I aged for the sole purpose of kicking your ass," she replied, lightly stepping down from her windowsill. "By the way, my lord, I don't care about your dirty politics, but once I'm done with this man, I'll be visiting you to get that lovely money, so keep it warm for me."

And then Kazuo hurled a series of kunai at her, which she swiftly blocked by taking out of seemingly nowhere the biggest battleaxe both men had ever seen.

"Lovely baby, huh? I had it made months ago and delivered to my place, to be used in the case someone tried to go against my policy of no killing in my home. It's my baby's first outing. Boy, are you lucky."

And she swung the weapon down as though it weighed nothing more than a feather in a demonstration of insane strength.

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So tell me. How explicit do you want me to be about what Sakura is going to do with Kazuo? 'Cause I can write some pretty gruesome descriptions, but if that doesn't sit well with you, I can tone it down. No problem, I haven't started writing it yet.

-tan: suffix meaning the same as –chan, but more cute. Mostly used by little girls or one who want to sound cute (winkwink)

Niji: rainbow

Hisakata: sky, moon

Asahi: morning sun


	37. What Some Would Call Revenge

Alright, people, this chapter is _definitely_ rated M. For violence, gore, and all the happy tidbits that come with that. And more, maybe. You'll see. Anyway, I think you guys will be satisfied, since you wanted me to write it in gory details (I was kinda surprised at the VAST majority of you who wanted me to do so, actually, since this fic hadn't really earned its M rating yet). For those of you who wished something mellower, here is a brief overview of what happens in this chapter: Sakura. Kicks. Ass.

… … … Alright, that was _really_ brief. But hey, that's what the whole chapter is about!

Enjoy, now! ^^

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"Today, Shirameki-san, I'm the judge, jury, and executioner."

Her feral smirk became more pronounced.

"Enjoy."

And then she jumped at him, brandishing her gigantic battle axe dangerously as though it weighed nothing more than a feather. She swung it at him and Kazuo only had enough time to duck, lest he be cleaved in two.

While the lord yelped and disappeared behind his desk, Kazuo stopped a downward blow with two kunai crossed in a bid for more strength, but he was no match for Sakura's insane chakra-enhanced one. She kicked him in the gut, sending him flying away, then sent chakra strings after him and yanked him back to her, only to punch him in the face with a glowing fist.

"Next time you decide to kill somebody, don't do it on my turf, you ass!"

Still, he was not a nuke-nin for nothing. Even with a broken nose, he wasn't fazed much and got to his feet quickly, sending a volley of shuriken flying at her.

She deviated them with kunai of her own, then threw her own kunai at him and created chakra scalpels on her right hand.

"Shall I dissect you, my little insect?" she asked in a mock innocent voice that belied a profound taunting. And a deeper scorn.

And she slashed at him, her chakra scalpels acting as a parody of claws as they plundered his flesh deeply—and yet, despite the pain, he found that not a speck of skin was displaced, not a drop of blood was spilt, and he looked up at her questioningly.

"Useful, isn't it?" said Sakura with a dark smirk. "I use these special chakra scalpels to operate without breaking the skin. How do your muscles feel?"

And then Kazuo, trying to reach for a new handful of kunai, realized that he couldn't move his right arm, and realization came with sudden, blinding clarity. She had cut his muscles, incapacitated him.

A growl rumbled in his throat, reverberated in the room, and then he threw himself at her, his right arm dangling pitifully at his side.

Sakura dispelled her chakra scalpels. And cracked her knuckles as she engaged in taijutsu combat. She didn't pull her punches, breaking her fair share of bones, but Kazuo was quite experienced in taijutsu himself and did manage to land a few punches on her. Yet in the state she was in, she didn't quite feel as much pain as she should have; rage was bubbling closer to the surface than blood.

And every time she felt bones crunch beneath her hands, a dark elation entered her mind. She could feel her smirk becoming larger as blood spattered across her hands and face. She may have used chakra scalpels to slice his insides to ribbons, but she found herself preferring to use normal chakra scalpels to slice deep into his skin, as deep as he had cut her when he had attacked someone in her home.

She cut his torso deeply before he jumped away, having learned by then that it was dangerous for him to stay in close range to her. With only one hand, it was much more difficult to use jutsu, but he still managed to do one-handed signs and send a wall of sand at her.

_Not good! Very, very much _not_ good!_

It wasn't like she could punch through a wall of sand! But then she smirked anew. He hadn't seen everything she was capable of, after all. And to be frank, he couldn't hold a candle to Gaara.

She jumped up, ran across the ceiling, and fell just behind him, where she had discarded her enormous battleaxe.

"Good old violence really is the best, after all," she purred, snatching the weapon easily, observing her handiwork appraisingly. Kauzo was _clearly_ in bad shape, anybody could see that. And he was panting heavily. Very heavily at that, considering he had a collapsed lung.

In fact, his whole face was whitening considerably minute by minute due to the lack of oxygen. With a snort, Sakura casually pranced up to him, axe resting lightly on her left shoulder, and flicked him on the forehead. Without so much as a sigh, he flew through the wall and crumbled like a doll among debris of wood and stone.

She then turned to the cowering lord, very much unimpressed. The man hadn't even called for help. How stupid of him. Unless it would create a scandal so big he couldn't keep it under wraps.

She sauntered over to him, went around the desk, and sat down on the edge calmly, crossing her legs primly.

"Hello, my lord. I think I'll hang on to this for you, if you don't mind," she said in a mock happy tone, snatching the scroll from the top of the desk where it had been resting all along, despite the rather ruined rest of the room.

"Wha—That's mine!" he yelled in outrage, only to flounder a moment later when her head snapped in his direction.

"That's the price of a man's life, milord, and you've made it clear such a unique treasure should never be in your hands. This will stay in my custody for now. And if you try to take it back… Shall I show you how far I can go?" she finished darkly, pulling him behind her as a kunai grazed her ears. "Awake now, Shirameki-san?" she asked sweetly.

She got up slowly with a feline grace that most kunoichi didn't have despite their graceful movements, confidence radiating from every pore of her body. Compared to her, Kazuo, who could barely stand on shaking legs, heaving and panting, looked like a sorry excuse for a ninja.

"I left the best part for last, you see?" she said, sauntering over to Kazuo. She kicked him in the chest with the sole of her boot, making him fall to his knees, coughing loudly, then walked around him and kneeled behind him on one knee. She grabbed his chin between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it so his eyes met his client's. Then she gave a long, sensuous lick along the column of his throat, tasting sweat, blood, and fear alike. She put her arms loosely around his shoulders, then fisted her fingers through his shirt and ripped it from his frame, exposing his torso to the air. Her fingers ran along the pale expanse of skin, sending tremors running through his frame, though he tried to contain them.

"Ah ah ah, don't restrain yourself, Shirameki-san," she whispered in his right ear at the same time as she reached for his weapons pouch with her left and retrieved a kunai. She ran the blade lightly from his navel to his collarbone, raising Goosebumps along the way. She could see his stomach ripple with the effort it took him not to move away reflexively. It appeared he knew it would not be wise to do so.

"Good boy," she purred in his ear, nibbling it lightly as a reward.

She let her left hand at his throat, the kunai acting as a reminder not to move, however lightly it pressed against his skin, and let her other roam his chest, her hand glowing.

And then Kazuo's back arched of its own accord; a strangled groan escaped his throat, and the lord's eyes widened as he realized that it had not been a pained groan, though it must have hurt him to move. And he saw Sakura's smirk widen dramatically—and knew it had been her intention when she raked her nails once more across his chest and the man moaned loudly as though he couldn't restrain himself before slumping against Sakura's slender form, head falling on to the side as sweat of another kind appeared on his temples and torso. An unnatural redness bloomed on his cheeks, contrasting vastly with the pallid whiteness they had adopted moments before, as Sakura's fingers barely grazed a nipple and he bit his lip roughly to keep from moaning lustfully once again.

"How frightening it is when your body doesn't react the way it is supposed to, isn't it, Shirameki-san?" asked the medic idly, as though she wasn't arousing on purpose a severely injured grown man. The only answer she received was another half-muffled moan.

"This isn't the half of it," she whispered tantalizingly, yet loud enough for the lord to hear. Chakra scalpels appeared at her fingertips and dug deep into the taut abdomen of the nuke-nin who emitted his loudest moan yet, eyes screwed shut in pleasure as she twisted the blades in his stomach under the lord's horrified eyes.

"And yet…it is so, so very easy to delude the body…so easy to make it think pain is pleasure…I could dig your heart out from your chest to give you the greatest ecstasy…" she whispered seductively, her tone taking on a darker edge.

She halted her movements at that, and her smirk became positively feral as Kazuo thrust his abdomen forward to get into contact with her hand more fully, begging desperately for more in a hoarse voice.

"Did you know, Kazuo? You're completely at my mercy, begging like the lowest whore for a drug that will kill you, yet despite knowing it, you can't help but to call out for more, more, always more…"

She twisted her chakra scalpels deeper into his ripped stomach, eliciting another pleasured groan from him, then plunged her hand in his abdomen in a smooth move. The squelching noise her hand made as it closed around Kazuo's intestines made their observer feel decidedly sick to the point that he felt the acidic burn of bile at the back of his throat. And then she yanked them out, and Kazuo's back arched artfully in the light streaming from the windows, and it would have been beautiful if only she hadn't been yanking his internal organs out without mercy, and the lord promptly lost his lunch on the expensive rug at his feet.

And when he looked up, Kazuo was slumped, spent, against the innocent-looking demon whose tongue darted out to lick at the blood covering her inner arm, and it traced a straight line up to her middle finger, and then he realized that the nuke-nin was still from more than the shaking orgasm he had just experienced.

And Sakura smiled ferally.

-:-

When Elder Chiyo received a message saying that Shirameki was apprehended, she closed her eyes briefly with a small smile before sending a retrieval team at the designated place.

_Sakura-sensei…It seems you are a person of honour. We in Suna will do well to keep an eye on you and make sure you keep us in your good graces._

-:-

The retrieval team arrived on site much more quickly than it would have, but since the ninja were already in the area when they received news that there was one more nuke-nin to retrieve before they returned to Suna, they didn't complain and took the necessary detour.

When they came at the meeting point, it was a good thing they had been warned beforehand to expect a child or else the sight of the diminutive female clad in black clothing, sitting lazily on a big boulder with a knee up and a gigantic battleaxe resting on her shoulder would have shocked them, much more so than the sight of the battered nuke-nin laying on the ground at her feet. He looked, for all intents and purposes, at Death's doors.

The child's head tilted to the side, as though she was contemplating them carefully. Then she jumped down and rested the head of her axe near the man's head.

"You're the retrieval team Chiyo-baa-sama sent, ne?"

The leader of the team nodded and stepped forward.

"The message said the man was still alive, but there was no mention of his state."

She cocked her head to the other side with a small, almost sheepish smile.

"Nuhuh. I didn't want to alarm her unnecessarily with gory tales of how I hunted him down and messed with him. I've kick-started his heart and healed the life-threatening injuries such as the collapsed lung and the sliced internal organs and the holes in his stomach, but only minimally. 'Cause I'm still angry at him, ne?" she finished cutely.

She crossed her arms and nodded to herself seriously.

"Yup. He really shouldn't have gone against my rules. Well, gotta go, I've got patients waiting for me back home!"

And with a sunny disposition, she disappeared from her spot.

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Disturbed much? If yes, that means I've accomplished my goal. I intended to make you see the darker side of the Sakura (hm…to make such bad jokes, I must be more tired than I thought…). Despite being a healer, she is also a kunoichi and she can be sadistic if need be. Such as now, to set an example. As I was thinking of a way for her to degrade Kazuo enough, this tidbit came to me. Hope you're satisfied.

By the way, I forgot to say this last time, but the whole concept of this story goes much beyond simply saying "blind and unseeing". And I didn't make Sakura blind for no reason. Anyway, you'll see, eventually.


	38. Hate and SelfHate

Some notes before you begin reading. First, if you want to know what Sakura looked like, imagine her in a black lab coat with a hat (I got inspiration from Ace's hat in One Piece, if you wanna see the type). Second, there is now some fanart for this story! I'm so ecstatic. For the link, see my profile. Finally, you'll see that this chapter is full of angst, but also full of hope. Keep tuned, next week will be full of ItaSaku goodness!

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Sakura reappeared in her cave and immediately dropped to her knees, her smirk disappearing instantly as she hugged herself. She felt ill, so ill, and couldn't help but hate herself. She had no doubt that in mere days, the word would be out not to mess with her for fear of a gruesome punishment, but it only disgusted her that she had to stoop so low as to torture a man so people would respect her wishes. And there was so much blood on her hands…

She tried to rub it off, first slowly then with more and more desperation as it flaked and peeled away in minuscule sections, yet felt like it was clinging to her, suffocating her slowly but surely.

With a strangled pained cry, Sakura lurched to her feet and lunged at the bathing cavern. She dropped in the cold water like a stone, clothes and all, and didn't emerge for a long, long time.

-:-

Tohru and Toranosuke looked at each other uncertainly. They had long since sensed Sakura's now familiar chakra appear in her cave, but it hadn't moved since.

"Hey…What do you think she's doing?"

Tohru looked up at Toranosuke, noting with distaste that the nuke-nin was crossing his arms at the threshold of his patient's room and making himself at home.

"How should I know? It's not my place to question her whereabouts or her dealings."

Sniffing pointedly, he returned to wrapping bandages around his patient's thighs.

"Yeah, yeah. But she's been down there for an awfully long time, dontcha think? She hasn't moved at all, too."

Tohru sighed loudly and hung his head, grinding his teeth audibly.

"Fine! Go see what she's up to."

With a satisfied smirk, Toranosuke uncrossed his arms, pivoted smartly, and disappeared, much to Tohru's pleasure.

And so Toranosuke went down the steps to the cave, calling out to Sakura, and getting more and more anxious as time passed and she didn't answer.

He called out to her curiously, entering the bathing cave slowly enough that she would have plenty of time to make herself presentable if need be.

"I'm here," replied the medic's voice in a tone so dead that it made Toranosuke shiver as he looked at her immobile form floating, fully clothed, aimlessly in the water.

"Sensei…Are you alright?" he dared to ask uncertainly, barely keeping himself from wringing his hands together.

"Huh? Oh yeah, fine. Totally fine. Except I despise myself, and I hate myself, and—"

Whatever else she was going to say lost itself in bubbles as she sank beneath the surface. With a strangled cry, Toranosuke dove in after her.

He grabbed her firmly by the middle and dragged her up, spluttering at the coldness of the water. Why hadn't she activated the seal for hot water and how long had she lain there without moving?

"Sensei! Sensei!"

He climbed onto one of the rocks jutting up in the middle of the water reservoir serving as bath, holding her preciously against him, and sat down with her in his lap, gently but urgently shaking her.

"Huh? Tachibana-san? Was there something you needed?"

He couldn't help but gape at her stupidly, wondering if she had realized at all what had happened; she looked so unaware of his presence…

"Sensei…You were floating in the water…for a long time…"

"Huh? Oh. So I was."

He shook his head at how disinterested she sounded and, in one fluid movement, stood up with her in his arms. He walked out of the cave, up the stairs and into the house, getting more anxious as time passed and she didn't force him to put her down.

_Something's seriously wrong with Sensei._

-:-

"Tachibana-san…Did you do something to sensei?"

"Shh…I didn't _do_ anything! Except change her into warm clothes after she almost killed herself. I don't know what she was thinking, staying in cold water for so long in this weather…Winter is almost upon us!"

"Tachibana-san…You _must_ have done something! It was a good idea to put her in a haori, especially since she spends half her time sitting despondently on the veranda…but to her credit, she does spend every minute she can healing our patients. It's as though when she's not drowning herself in work, she just becomes…empty. I want our old fiery, sarcastic and lively sensei back, not this empty shell she left behind!"

"Yeah…I feel that way too, and I know Satsuki-chan does, too. And did you notice? She doesn't even write back when she gets letters from the Uchiha anymore. Even though she used to smile so brightly whenever she got one."

The two men glanced at the medic sitting all alone on the veranda, shoulders hunched. At that moment, she sighed loudly, looking thoroughly depressed, and they resolved to bring her back to normal.

-:-

Autumn turned into winter and still Sakura showed no sign of feeling better. If anything, her state got worse, her skin becoming paler day by day once news got out of what she had done to Shirameki Kazuo. She stopped sleeping more than an hour or two a day, clearly resting only so that her body wouldn't give out on her, and stopped eating altogether. She had given up on food after the fifth time she had thrown up the contents of her stomach.

Watching her pop a new soldier pill in her mouth, Toranosuke shook his head. If she continued on that destructive path, there was no doubt she would soon perish. Already, it was clear she had lost weight and was only losing more as days went by.

"Ishika-san…Have you sent the letter?" he whispered to his companion.

"Hai…All we can do now is wait and hope…"

-:-

Sakura didn't know it—at that point, she didn't care much about anything anyway—but rumours about how she had ruthlessly hunted down Kazuo had reached far across the Hidden Countries. Those who hadn't taken her threat seriously began to reconsider their position; nobody wanted to be made into a mess such as the one the man had become after she had finally found him.

In Konoha, too, word was out that she had made do on her promise. But word was also out that since then, she had lost herself in her work, and those who knew her became worried that she was pushing herself too hard.

The Uchiha, in particular, were used to receiving letters from her regularly, and not receiving any from her since them had them worried, even though they hid it better than most. That silence on her part was unnatural and even more so as she didn't respond to any of their letters. The normal hers wouldn't have been so callous as to keep from answering them, no matter how busy she was.

Sasuke was young enough that he could be fooled by Fugaku's explanation that Sakura had a lot to do at present, but Itachi knew perfectly well that there was more to the story than either of them knew. And he was worried by the lack of news.

"Aniki! A hawk!"

Itachi sighed. Sasuke had taken to watching hawks in the hopes of seeing Sakura's one fly through the sky to deliver them news and it was not the first time he had called out to him. As always, the hawk would fly over without stopping, for Sakura was keeping silent.

"Aniki! That's Konoha!"

And then his heart traitorously clenched as he had kept it from doing after the first dozen times Sasuke had called out. Wild hope bloomed in him as he ran out of his room; his heart pounded in his ears.

The door slammed open, letting the cold winter air in the house, and then he streaked in the garden, ran to the sakura tree up to the highest branch that could support his weight, and with one strong impulsion, propelled himself into the air, straight toward the hawk. Konoha swooped down and landed on his outstretched hand to the amazed encouraging cries of his little brother. And then he was landing primly on the frozen ground, feeling strangely more victorious than he felt when he accomplished a particularly difficult mission.

His fingers wrapped around the scroll Konoha had delivered to him and he closed his eyes for a moment to savor the feel of the paper under his calloused hands, only opening them when Sasuke's young voice urged him to open the scroll.

With trembling, feverish hands, he did as asked and read the message, eyebrows furrowing as he noticed Sakura had not been the one to write the letter.

He lowered the letter, clenching his hands at his sides, and looked in the distance, as though he could see her simply by looking toward the Land of Hot Water.

"Otouto-kun…I may be gone for a while…" he murmured distantly, hearing himself say the words through a haze, as though he was dreaming. And yet, another part of himself was so awake, so very intent; the part of him that was focusing on Sakura, that knew life without her was hollow.

-:-

"This is highly unusual, Itachi-san," murmured Sarutobi, looking at the genius over his steepled fingers.

Itachi inclined his head.

"I know, Hokage-sama, but this is the most direct and fastest way I had to achieve my goal. I do not know when the next mission in the Land of Hot Water will be requested by a client, nor is there any guarantee my team would be adequate for it. Hence, coming to you to request a mission, as client, is the fastest way for me to go there."

"So you wish to be escorted to the Land of Hot Water," resumed the Hokage, glancing at the scroll in front of him.

"Hai. My family would not accept it if I went without a proper escort, since I am the Uchiha heir. As a mission independent from my family, I shall pay for the expanses. I believe I have enough savings from my missions to cover the costs."

Sarutobi's wise eyes observed the young ninja, noting the firm set of his jaw. The young boy's eyes never wavered from his own, looking straight at him with a patience he was sure he didn't feel. He took a drag of his pipe and exhaled softly, putting the scroll down.

"Itachi-san…Am I to assume this has something to do with a certain pink-haired medic residing in the area?"

There was no embarrassment in his tone, eyes, or overall appearance as he answered affirmatively.

"Her people sent me a letter, requesting my presence. It seems that she is not well and they believe I could help her get better."

"Very well, you may go. I'll send three jounin with you. Make sure she is well. That brilliant young girl is very important and I do like her, never mind the fact that she is one of my students' daughter. She has spunk, that one. Get her back to normal, Itachi-san."

It was with a brief smile that Itachi bowed to his superior.

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

-:-

Waiting at the gates, Itachi wondered who his escort would be. Seeing as he was an important member of the village, he didn't doubt that they would be good ninja, but when he had left the Hokage's office, Sarutobi hadn't yet decided on who would accompany him to Sakura's dwelling.

"Heeeey! The genius's there! Itachi-san!"

He knew that voice. He turned around and, sure enough, he saw Genma strolling down the street in his direction. Next to him, Gai smiled brightly and, with a thumbs up, hollered, "Good morning, Itachi-san! We are here to accompany you on your chivalrous journey of bringing back the flower of youth to Sakura-sensei!"

Had he been a lesser man—or not an Uchiha—Itachi would have groaned. Of course, both Genma and Gai were good ninja, and they both knew Sakura, but he could feel the journey would be more tiresome with the two of them as his escort.

"Isn't there supposed to be another ninja with you?" he asked, looking at the two intently.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't expect him to come anytime soon," said Genma calmly, rolling his usual senbon from one side of his mouth to the other.

"My eternal rival shall not disappoint us when he shows up!" yelled Gai enthusiastically, his smile becoming brighter if at all possible.

Yeah. That journey would be long. But not any longer than the waiting time would seem to him before Kakashi deigned to show up.

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Oh yeah! Itachi to the rescue! For those of you who don't understand the sudden change in Sakura, this will be explained in the next chapter, but keep in mind that she wants people to accept her village, not tolerate it because they're afraid of retaliation.


	39. Journeys

Welcome, dear readers! Now, this is just me being my curious self, but here goes: Where are you when you read my updates? 'Cause I got some feedback from people that was simply hilarious! It made me wonder what the rest of you are doing/where you are when you get your hands on my updates.

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The four Konoha ninja were diligent in their journey to the Land of Hot Water, but to the Uchiha heir, they couldn't have gotten to Sakura's home fast enough even if they had miraculously shunshined there. There was a deep throbbing in his chest that didn't bode well, and he knew with utmost certainty that it had to do with Sakura.

When the waterfall came into view, it took everything he had not to rush ahead and barge in unceremoniously. Next to him, Gai, Genma and Kakashi were also worried, their eyes having lost their cheerfulness.

They ran up the cliff and came to a stop at the top. Out on the veranda, Toranosuke was waiting for them.

"Come in," he said without preamble, "Sensei's state worsened considerably three days ago."

As they followed him down a corridor, they heard Sakura's voice coming from one of the rooms, giving orders to Tohru on how to heal a patient.

"Hey, what—"

Toranosuke looked over his shoulder at Genma, shaking his head resignedly.

"This way. You'll understand soon enough if you follow me," he said, leading them down the corridor and away from the room that all four ninja wanted to enter so badly.

Finally, Toranosuke stopped in front of a room, closed his eyes for a moment as if going in would pain him, and opened the shoji door in one swift move. Then he moved aside and let them in. No word was spoken as they trailed in, taking in the sight that was presented to them.

In the middle of the traditionally furnished room, tucked carefully in a futon that made her look more vulnerable than any of them had even seen her, lay Sakura. Someone had taken off her blindfold, and they could see deep purple bruise-like bags under her eyes. Her skin was pallid, stretched over her small form, and it was clear that she had lost some weight as well as much sleep.

They sat down on either side of her futon, looking at what she had become sadly.

"What happened?" asked Itachi in a voice empty of all feelings, laying a hand on top of the futon to sense Sakura's body heat through the covers. His anxiousness abated somewhat, but he would not feel comfortable until she was well again, smiling and being her usual fiery self.

Toranosuke sighed, closing the door behind him, and stepped calmly in the room.

"This started when she came back from hunting down the man who poisoned one of our patients. She came back completely despondent; it didn't get any better. Three days ago, she looked so feeble we tried to get her to come inside with us, telling her we needed her help dealing with a patient."

He paused, trailing a hand across a low table on which several scroll were scattered and sighed once more. It seemed he was doing that a lot recently.

"She didn't even turn around, just put her hands together to form a series of seals. And then she sent a clone back with us—that's who you heard on the way here. And when we came back outside, a while later, to get her inside, we saw that she hadn't moved at all. She was still sitting on the veranda, draped in the haori we had gotten her. But no matter how many times we called her, she didn't answer."

The males looked at Sakura's bone-tired form silently as Toranosuke finished, "She's been like this ever since."

-:-

"You know, we can't help much if she's not even awake, ne?" asked Genma idly. "Don't you have a way to wake her up?"

Toranosuke shrugged sadly.

"We've tried. Without success, as you might guess. If you have any idea…"

They threw around various ideas, such as shaking her awake, swinging her from the top of the cliff, or putting a plate of food under her nose, all of which were discarded, as they had either been tried before or were too ridiculous to even attempt.

"I've seen Yamanaka Inoichi-san do his mind reading technique once," said Itachi at long last. "I'm not completely sure it would work, but I could try to use it and see why Sakura-sensei won't awaken."

As it was the best idea that had been tossed around yet, the other males nodded their acquiescence with shrugs, figuring it was at least worth a try.

And so Itachi put a hand on Sakura's forehead and entered her mind.

"_Get out!_"

He only saw an angry pair of green eyes before he found himself on his back in Sakura's bedroom. He blinked, focusing on the ceiling, and blinked once more when four faces came into his field of vision, looming above him anxiously.

"Maa, maa, what happened, Itachi-san?" asked Kakashi in his usual laidback manner.

"I…am not quite sure, actually. I saw a pair of green eyes, angry ones, and then I found myself here. I think…she ejected me out of her mind."

"The flames of youth still burn bright in Sakura-sensei!" yelled Gai enthusiastically.

"But…What about those green eyes you saw?" asked Genma. "I mean, none of us actually know what colour her eyes were before whatever happened to make her lose them. Maybe they were hers…"

"Or maybe they were those of someone who took over her mind and made her into this despondent mess," completed Toranosuke.

They all pondered on that for a moment, wondering whether they'd prefer it if she was keeping herself sheltered in her own mind or it someone was doing it for her.

"I think it was her. I heard her voice telling me to get out at the same time as I saw those eyes, and I doubt she would have wanted me out if someone had confined her in her head."

Well, he was not going to settle for that.

He sat up by himself, his strong eyes immediately focusing on Sakura's small form before they narrowed intently.

"I'm going back. It worked, and I'm going to try as many times as it takes for her to listen to me and come out."

-:-

The first few times he tried, Itachi was forcefully ejected out of Sakura's head, to the point where he actually became used to finding himself on his back. That, though, didn't deter him, for he was nothing if not stubborn.

After the seventh time—yes, he had counted—the green eyes didn't appear instantly, instead, he found himself in a kind of limbo, surrounded by darkness.

"You really don't learn, do you?" asked a voice he knew well in a mocking manner, coming from seemingly everywhere around him.

"I'll keep coming, as many times as it takes, until my voice reaches sensei," replied Itachi firmly, only to be met with silence.

"Well, you certainly are persistent," finally replied the voice. "Why do you want so much to talk to her?"

"She is very important to me. Now let me see her!"

The voice hummed pensively, then a figure appeared in front of him, one that he knew well yet did not.

"Who are _you_?" he asked curiously with a measure of suspicion. The older woman looked very much like an older version of Sakura, with eyes that was. "You…are you sensei's mother?"

At that, the woman laughed loudly and gestured to her forehead.

"See that? _I_ am Inner Sakura. My domain is your precious Sakura's mind. You could say I'm a double personality of hers, created to protect her. Nowadays, she doesn't need me much, except to protect her—well, ours, really—mind."

Itachi tried to wrap his mind around the fact that Sakura had another personality whose sole purpose was to protect her mind. That in itself wasn't so hard to do. But…

"Why do you appear so much older than Sakura-sensei?" he asked calmly.

"Well, I'm not confined to a corporeal form like she is, so I'm at ease to appear however I want to. It fits much more with my mental age, ne?" Of course, she wasn't about to tell him that her appearance was that of her real age, so fibbing a bit wouldn't hurt him.

"Does that mean she will look like you when she's older? Minus green eyes, of course."

"Unless she loses some limb or another, yup."

And then she posed for him with a wicked smirk. "Like it?"

"You indeed have a voluptuous body many would envy, but this is not the time for that. Sakura-sensei's body is getting weaker. She needs to eat and drink, and soon. She may die soon otherwise—and then you would die, too."

The woman cocked her head to the side and crossed her arms on her chest, observing him pensively.

"Well, I'd like her to get out too, you know. I do care about her and want her to be happy, but she's sheltered herself here, in hopes it would make her forget about what she has done."

"What she—do you mean the incident about Shirameki Kazuo?"

"The one and only. There's more to that than you know, but it's not my place to tell. Just…remember that there is more to her than even you know. Maybe one day you will be privy to all her secrets, but for now, you will have to make do with what you know to appease her. Come."

And suddenly, he found himself in a darkened corridor. Looking around, she could see the corridor was lined with doors, all barricaded in some way or another.

"Those lead to various moments of her life, which you are not privy to, of course. _Don't_ try to enter any of them or I'll boot you out of here faster than you can imagine. Don't forget you're only here thanks to me. Maybe I should make you suck up to me," said the woman, leading him down the corridor confidently.

In the end, they walked for what felt like a really long time but was probably less so and ended up in front of a sturdy door covered in chains.

"Stay back," warned Inner Sakura. A devilish smile appeared on her face as she threw her hand back, formed a fist, and started glowing. "Shannaro!"

The door, chains and all, exploded in smithereens of wood and metal. In the dust that rose up, Itachi could barely see the huddled form of a little girl.

_Sensei._

But then, before he could go in, the older woman barred his way.

"Now you've seen her, but I'm sorry, young one, you don't get to go in."

And then he found himself on his back in Sakura's bedroom. Again.

-:-

"You were there for a bit longer, this time, ne?" asked Genma. Of course, that was relative, for time did not pass the same way in one's mind and in reality, such were the effects of the mind-reading jutsu. Still, as Itachi had not found himself on his back the very instant he had put his hand on her forehead, there was cause for wondering whether something of significance had happened in her mind.

"Hai, this time I wasn't thrown out immediately. I got to spend some time with the owner of those green eyes. She said she's Inner Sakura, a personality created by Sakura-sensei to protect her mind. She took me to where sensei was secluding herself and told me she would get her out. And then I found myself here."

"Then we only have to wait now, ne?" said Kakashi idly. "Well, I'm hungry. Let's get some food before she wakes up."

All knew it was only a ploy to give Itachi some alone time with the unconscious medic, and so everyone trailed out of the room without complain.

Their footsteps faded away rapidly, until all that was left was the sound of his own heartbeat and that of Sakura's breathing.

His ears were very perceptive, and so when her breathing accelerated, indicating she was getting closer to waking up, he immediately tuned in. He settled closer to her head, holding his breath to hear her better.

And then she took a deep breath, and her eyelids fluttered open.

"Sensei…"

-:-

Omake

"My eternal rival! I shall race you to Sakura-sensei's dwelling! I shall not rest until we've arrived or I swear I will make the journey back on my hands!"

"Maa maa…Even for you, that would be suicide, you know?"

"For sensei, I'm ready to resist sleep until I can't even crawl anymore!" swore the self-proclaimed Green Beast of Konoha, much to the dismay of his companions.

"No need to go that far, Gai-san…" tried to placate Genma, without much success.

Through it all, Itachi kept a fast but steady pace, hoping to tune them out—hoping being the operative word.

"Let us ask the fine young man thanks to whom we embarked on this journey!" proclaimed the taijutsu expert loudly. "What say you, Itachi-san?"

Whether it was to escape from him—them, really—or just to agree with him so he would stop yelling his heart out, Itachi sped ahead.

"See? Itachi-san agrees with me! Let's go, my eternal rival!" sounded suspiciously enthusiastically behind him.

In the end, it was up to Genma to stop them to get a minimum of sleep. And even then, it was hardly successful. Well, with people like Gai and Itachi driving them hard, the contrary would have been nothing short of miraculous.

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GAH! I _hate_ this chapter! I know it had to be written, and I had a fairly easy time writing it, but still, I'm not satisfied. It seems…lacking, I suppose. Maybe that's why I added that omake. Who knows. Well, I'm done with my rant. See you next week.


	40. Confessions

Well, guys, I was quite surprised at where you are when you read my updates. For my lovely reviewer in Peru: you are frickin' awesome. And you who read while your boss peered over your shoulder: man, I'd like to have a boss as sweet as that. You guys all made me smile, really. Thanks for making do with my curiosity.

I most definitely hate this chapter. It didn't come out well, no matter how much I tried to rewrite it. So I give up. The basics are there, at least.

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"I'm…hungry… and…thirsty…"

The whisper barely reached Itachi's ears, for at that point, Sakura had not drunk any fluid in several days and her throat was badly parched, making for a pathetic whisper of a voice.

"Hai. Wait a moment, sensei," replied Itachi, his eyes instantly going straight to the low table on which a tray was waiting for the medic to utter those exact words.

He brought back both the tray and a few pillows that he proceeded to pile up under her so she could have something to prop her up. He put the tray on her lap, then heated up the okayu with a minor katon jutsu. Once steam was escaping from the closed lid of the bowl, he plunged a spoon into the rice gruel, blew on it to cool it slightly, and brought it to Sakura's lips.

Had it been anyone other than him, no matter what her state of weakness was, she would not have allowed such a thing to happen. But maybe it was a weakness in itself that she allowed herself to be feeble in his presence.

Or maybe it was a strength. Nobody could be on their guard at all times.

By the time she had finished eating, she was exhausted and fell back to sleep with nary a sigh. Itachi eased her down, feeling supremely content that she would trust him enough to fall asleep in his presence. Of course, he had seen her asleep before, but all of those times were different, as she had then had a way to defend herself. She had been strong then, as she was not now.

_I'll get you back to normal, sensei, even if I have to fight you every step of the way to do it._

-:-

There was definite progression in Sakura's state. In less than a week, she began to eat by herself and her hands stopped shaking with the effort to do so only a few days later. Slowly but surely, her physical state was returning to normal. However, her mental state did not fare so well. Despondency was hard to fight, especially in her home, where she had to stay in her room while her clone acted in her stead, giving Toranosuke and Tohru orders and keeping Satsuki entertained so the girl didn't suspect anything was amiss.

And thus, Itachi came to the conclusion that it would be in Sakura's best interest to get out of the house for a while. But where to go?

And the answer came to him with sudden clarity. They were in the _Land of Hot Water_.

"Sensei, let's go to an onsen."

"What a positively swell idea!" exclaimed Gai brightly.

"Yeah, that _is_ a good idea," noted Genma. "After all, we _are_ in the Land of Hot Water. This is a _must_."

And just as easily as that, it was decided.

-:-

Sighs of satisfaction were heard above the swirls of smoke rising from the water. The males were quite satisfied. Nothing quite hit the spot for sore muscles the way hot water did. And so they relaxed, waiting for Sakura to join them.

Itachi privately was sitting on pins and needles. He could barely sit still, waiting for her to come out from behind the rock she had used as a screen to change. Eyes unfocused, he imagined her, coming out with a towel wrapped around her hair and another around her frail body. And then his vision came true; through the smoke, her pale form emerged slowly. He couldn't tear his eyes away as she stepped cautiously in the water and finally settled comfortably on a flat rock at the bottom of the hot spring.

After a while, a soft smile even appeared on her face and the tense line of her shoulders relaxed somewhat. Only then did the males release the breath they had been holding.

"Are you feeling better now, sensei?" asked Genma, who was the closest to her.

"…Yeah…" she replied after a long moment. "But why did you all come? I'm not worth it."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Gai indignantly.

"Maa, he's right on that one," admitted Kakashi lazily, then proceeded to duck in order to avoid the bear hug the taijutsu expert had decided to bestow upon him, tears streaking down his face like a waterfall as he cried, "Ah, my rival! Finally you acknowledge me!"

"One person's worth is not decided by that person, but by the people around them who know them well enough to judge them," said Itachi calmly, ignoring the scene taking place somewhere to his right. "If we are here, it is because we deem you worth it, sensei."

It all seemed so simple, so true, that emotion swelled within Sakura, leaving clear trails across her cheeks as she hugged her knees to her chest vulnerably.

"How do you do it? How do you think me worthy so easily if even I despise myself?" she murmured painfully, looking more like a little girl than ever.

"Ne, sensei, if you're too close to something, you may lose sight of the bigger picture. Sometimes, you have to take a step back to see clearly," said Genma, putting an arm around her shoulders, bringing her flush against his side to let her cry all she wanted. "Maybe you're too focused on that part of yourself that you despise. That's not all there is to you. We know that. We wouldn't be here otherwise. Aren't you our favorite medic, the one who does crazy good massages and heals anybody and everybody, the one who decided to create a medical village for that very reason?"

Sakura stayed silent for a long moment and it was long after Gai and Kakashi's show had ebbed slowly that she muttered, still leaning heavily against Genma, "I hate myself. My lack of self-control…When I discovered someone had poisoned one of my patients, I just…something snapped inside me. I was…hate and anger all bottled in one, and there was no place for me anymore in all of that. It was like taking a backseat and watching someone control your body, only you _know_ nobody else is…It's so…terrifying…"

She hugged herself, shivering violently, going back to that moment when she had carved the kanji for destiny in Kazuo's back, just before she had sent her letter to Elder Chiyo. The pleasure she had derived from that one, single act, disgusted her.

"Hey, hey, sensei, don't go where we can't follow you," came Genma's deep voice, disrupting her thoughts and warming her even more than his arm as he pulled her flusher against him. She felt herself be moved to his lap, both of his arms encircling her and keeping her firmly against his chest.

With her face buried in his chest, she could let loose her tears, and she wondered whether he had put her in that particular position so she could let her tears run down her cheeks without anyone seeing them, even though he, for one, could certainly feel them on his torso.

And with every tear she cried, a small part of her grief, self-hate and misery disappeared.

Through it all, Itachi wished he was older so it could be his larger body wrapped around Sakura's protectively, even though he knew the older jounin was no threat to him. Someday, _he_ would be the one she cried on in this way, and it would be _him_ comforting her.

-:-

"I've seen too much already in this life…maybe it is for the best that I can't see anymore."

Itachi didn't say anything for a long moment, brushing her hair steadily.

"I very much doubt that, sensei," he said at length, "but I suppose that is for you to decide. However, I assure you that no matter how much you see, you can always live with it, despite how much it can hurt you."

She then remembered that he had seen war already; advice coming from someone who actually knew what he was talking about was way more effective.

"If you can't bear to live for yourself, sensei, do so for others. So many people count on you…I know I do."

A small, painful smile stretched her lips.

"Hai…I suppose you do. Inner told me how many times you tried to reach me…"

He pinned a pink braid on top of her head and started working on another.

"I do not regret doing so. Leaving you despondent was never an option."

She felt something suspiciously warm bloom in her chest at his certain tone. On its own, her right hand found his and clasped it tightly. A moment later, he moved closer to her and laced their fingers together. Nothing was said for a long, long moment as she reclined against him, her hair all but forgotten as they reveled in the moment.

"I'm glad you're here, Itachi-san," she uttered. "I'm so afraid I destroyed everything I worked for. I wanted people to respect what I'm doing because they thought it was right, not because they're afraid of retaliation. But I think that more than anything, I'm disappointed in myself. I'm glad you came for me, to remind me I'm human."

Itachi wrapped his arms around her, happy that she didn't shy away from him.

"I know you better than most, sensei, and while you're not perfect, your morals make you better than most people."

-:-

Itachi and Sakura spent more and more time together, mostly in silence, but sometimes talking quietly. Most often, they found themselves suspiciously alone, as though the other males in the house were giving them time alone deliberately. And so it was that they spent hours in each other's company, often on the veranda, wrapped in soft blankets. And at the end of the day, she often ended up falling asleep on his shoulder, making him believe that maybe, just maybe, he had a chance.

A small, real smile stretched his lips. And in the distance, he saw an orange dot coming steadily closer to them.

"Sensei, look," he said, pointing to the form, even knowing that she could not see colours. She could at least sense the being's presence.

"How strange…I guess summons _do_ feel different, after all," murmured Sakura, straightening slightly so she was no longer leaning against him. "Hello, young toad. What brings you here?"

Said toad came to a stop in front of her, rubbing its arms to ward off the winter chill.

"Boss wanted me to stay with you for a while, until you got better. He was too busy to come, but he made me promise not to leave until you felt better. Now, if you don't mind, can I come in? I'm freezing my ass out here."

"Please, do come in. Would you like a cup of warm tea?" asked Sakura, opening the shoji door to let the bright batrachians in.

"Sure. Anything to get rid of that chill," replied the toad.

"Alright. The teapot should still be on the fire. Please come. Ano…Will you excuse me, Itachi-san?"

With a nod, Itachi waved her in.

"Ah, I wouldn't go too far if I were you," said the toad. "I've got a feeling you're going to have a visitor soon."

"Oh, Itachi-san, would you welcome them for me, please? I'll be in the kitchen."

"Of course, sensei."

And so they each went their way quietly. The Uchiha found himself chuckling discreetly as Satsuki fawned over the toad—apparently, in her mind, orange overgrown toads entered in the "cute" category.

It was not much later that a rather polite knock sounded at the front door. Knowing that it was most probably the visitor the toad had been talking about, he walked to the door and slid it open, immediately assessing the man standing in the snow.

"Hello. My name is Akawa Satoshi. The people down at the village told me if I came here, the doctor would accept to take me in. I thought I could stay a few days…"

Itachi stepped aside to let the tall man in.

"Come in. Sensei will let you stay as long as you need as long as you respect her ground rules. This is a clinic, samurai-san. Most importantly, this clinic accepts any patient. No matter their origin, no matter their sex, no matter their age, no matter their allegiance. I suggest you don't upset those rules, for your sake. The last and only one who did ended up in a really bad shape. And for sensei's sake, too. If you don't respect those rules, _she_ won't be the one to hunt you down."

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Keep in mind that things aren't resolved yet, but patience is needed for matters of the heart. Crying and having emotional support is a step in the right direction, but Sakura needs to come to terms with everything on her own.

Dear readers, there will be no update next week, as I enjoy a much deserved vacation. I will be back in two weeks!

okayu: rice porridge, usually made for sick people

onsen: hot spring


	41. Why She Plans Ahead

I'm back! Be happy, I'm even posting this sooner because I'm not going to have access to the internet until sometime Monday (as opposed to waiting until Monday to post this baby). Well, the plot is moving forward, there is much discussion, but I think the ItaSaku lovers out there might like the ending, especially. The next chapter should be lighter. Be prepared for festivities.

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Despite his young age, Itachi knew how to make a threat. And he knew how to carry one, too, of that Satoshi was quite certain. The young boy had the eyes of someone willing to do anything to protect the sensei he clearly held dear, as did many fighters. It was uncanny to see such eyes in the face of one so young, but not unheard of.

He discarded his boots then followed the young boy down the corridor, noting that he had not asked him to leave his katana and wakizashi at the door—either the boy was a naïve fool full of blind trust or he had the necessary means to defend himself should he try anything. Given how he had been welcomed, he tended to lean toward the latter. The fact that such a young child had already stress lines on his face proved that he was not merely a normal kid.

Up ahead, he could hear animated voices—he supposed one of the female ones belonged to the sensei he had heard about, but they seemed too young to belong to someone with enough maturity and experience to set up a clinic like this. Maybe she was staying silent and observing.

His guide opened a side door, stepping aside to let him get in first, and he was granted his first look at the inhabitants of the place. A blonde guy, a tall and strong one, a pink-haired child and a female adolescent. Along with a big orange toad.

"Sensei, may I present Akawa Satoshi," announced his guide with a cool, precise voice. To his surprise, the younger girl's head turned in their direction, a small smile stretching her face.

"Ah, so you are my visitor. What brings you here, Akawa-san? You don't seem injured."

It was only thanks to the warnings of the villagers not to underestimate the medic, despite her unusual appearance, that he didn't flinch at being clearly assessed by a blind child.

"I am a ronin, sensei. My lord has let me go recently and I've been wandering ever since. I don't have a home to return to in this cold season. I offered to do some labour in exchange for a place to stay, down at the village, but nobody had room for me. They did say, however, that you would probably be amenable to the proposition."

Sakura cocked her head to the side almost comically as Satsuki hugged her from behind.

"Of course, I could always use someone around here, Akawa-san, but there are certain rules around here."

He nodded in acceptance.

"So I've gathered. I am willing to abide by them."

"It is easy to say, but much less to obey them. Neutrality is a nice concept, but it isn't quite as nice to uphold it. But I'll give you a chance, on the condition that you tell me why you master let you go. You must understand that depending on your answer, I may not let you stay here. And please don't lie to me, all of us here would be able to tell immediately if you did."

Despite understanding her reasons, for it would not do for her to accept someone who could potentially be a danger to her patients or herself, Satoshi had some reservations. For a samurai, being let go was a severe dishonor, something that was not done unless said samurai had done something so outrageous his master had no choice but to disavow him. It was, usually, the result of treason.

"My lord was highly homophobic; I happen to not enjoy the company of women. In the end, it seems my competence was nothing next to my sexual inclination. I was let go a fortnight ago. My lord's last order was that I not commit seppuku, and so it is that I came to wander the lands."

His speech was formal, cold and distant, for he could not recount the events without feeling a painful twinge if he allowed himself to be emotionally attached. Things had happened too early in the past for the wounds to close. Fortunately, he knew how to mask his emotions; remaining aloof was a strain, but not an impossible endeavour.

After a long moment of silence, Sakura nodded calmly.

"You have my thanks, Akawa-san. I understand that such things must be difficult to utter for you. As for me, your sexual orientation does not bother me. You may stay here as long as you wish in exchange for some labour on your part. While all of us can live comfortably here, you must understand that I am not rich and thus everyone has a part to play in order to live here. Ishika-san is my assistant in all things medical; Tachibana-san helps me with menial labour. What can you help me with?"

"I don't know much about medicine, I admit. I was an advisor to my lord, but first and foremost a samurai of loyalty and integrity. If my services in either capacity can be useful…"

"So your lord lost an advisor…let's make him regret losing such an important asset," said the medic with a small smirk. "I don't know about the samurai world, but in the ninja circles, word is out that I am going to create a medical village. I can't, however, go out all the time to roam the country in search of good medics or doctors, or even anybody who wishes to help out with anything on the sidelines. Stay here during winter, and help us restock on medical apparatuses, bandages and the likes. Once in a while, I send Ishika-san down at the nearby town to restock and sell ointments and such. Next time, you'll go with him. He'll show you the ropes, so that you can go alone the next time."

That show of trust was more than he had expected. In a sense, it was a test, and one that he felt he should not fail. Still, there was something peculiar.

"You…seem to expect me to stay for quite a bit of time, sensei."

Sakura shrugged off Satsuki's arms, going to the counter to get the teapot. With careful movements, she poured him a cup and gave it to him gently, telling him it would warm him up.

"It is your life to live, Akawa-san. You may stay here as long as you wish if you are willing to work for me. And I need loyal people. Akawa-san, work for me."

The ronin hung his head.

"The trust you show in me is humbling, sensei, but while I may work for a while here, I _can't_ work _for_ you. The only one I can work for is my lord, so please see this as only repayment for my stay here."

Sakura nodded pensively, pouring herself a cup of tea. She made the tea swirl around slowly in the cup, murmuring that that could be a problem.

"Let me be your master, then."

-:-

It was really quite a situation, thought Itachi to himself. A ninja, master to a samurai. An old, gentlemanly one, at that. Who kept calling her ojou-sama ever since he took an oath to serve her.

Around him, Gai, Genma and Kakashi barely hid their amusement at seeing him so restless. And even Sakura noticed, despite his efforts to seem cool and calm before her.

"What is it, Itachi-san? You seem restless." And then, as though some evidence had hit her in the face: "Oh! Christmas! That's right, you must want to go back home in time for the festivities! Please, don't feel forced to stay here. I'm really feeling much better. Sasuke-kun must want to see you, too, ne?"

The chuckles from the three shinobi were barely concealed, grating on his nerves harshly. Of course they found it funny.

"Ah, but sensei, your swain is here. Why not spend Christmas with him?" suggested Genma with a bright, mischievous smile.

"My _what?_" exclaimed Sakura loudly, faltering in her movements.

In the far corner of the room, the colourful toad puffed away on its pipe.

"Is that not how you female humans call your male lovers? You _are_ involved, are you not?"

"I—we—that isn't—"

While she flustered and faltered, Itachi intervened smoothly.

"Sensei is putting me on trial before accepting my courtship," he explained with a small smile.

"I—Itachi-san!" she exclaimed, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

The Uchiha turned in her direction.

"Is that not so? I do intend to make you accept me."

Sakura sighed, feeling suddenly much, much older and tired.

"Itachi-san, it's not a question of acceptance…Some things are simply impossible."

"Whatever it is that is not up to your standards in me I swear to change, sensei."

Sakura felt something suspiciously warm in her chest and cursed herself for being affected by his words. She could not do this! Damn him for making her feel like this and damn her for letting him!

_Itachi-san, why is it that you're able to make me feel like I'm flying and drowning at the same time?_

"Why, Itachi-san?" she asked at length. "Why do you try so hard to win me over? Aren't there plenty of powerful and beautiful kunoichi in your clan? Wouldn't it be simpler?"

The Uchiha approached her, noting how distressed she was, and put his arms gently around her. It was like she was a frightened bird and it was clear she was fighting not to disentangle herself from him—it made him smile mentally. She did trust him; she did like him. He only had to make her lose her reservations.

"Is it truly so hard to imagine that I want to be happy for the rest of my life with you?"

His tone was calm, his face impassible, but no one was fooled: the answer to his question mattered very much to him.

Sakura felt defeated. At his age, surely he was bound to change his mind? Then again…Itachi was known for thinking through every move he made and being very stubborn once he had made his mind. Was it too late to make him lose interest in her?

"What is hard to imagine isn't you wanting to live a happy life with me," she admitted, "rather than the thought of me having a future at all."

At that, every head in the room snapped in her direction, surprise plain on every one of them.

"Sensei? What do you mean?" asked Genma, wishing, as everyone did, that she explained herself. Nobody could understand why, at times, she sounded so ominous.

Sakura sat down on a cushion with a heavy sigh, rubbed the sides of her head tiredly, and bit the inside of her cheek.

"My existence in this world is a mistake," she began rather ambiguously. "It is unnatural. Surely you have noticed that the array of things I can do is much larger than that of a normal child? I am both more mature and more intelligent than the norm."

"So am I, sensei," replied Itachi, wondering why she felt necessary to cite her attributes; she wasn't a vain person.

"Ever since I came into this world, I have felt that I would not live long. It is why I secluded myself here; and then people came to me, and I found myself unable not to help them. Still, I feel that my life here will come to an end much sooner than I would have thought. And so I began preparing a way for this future medical village of mine to exist independently from me."

She sounded so very serious, so very certain of what she was saying…Still, Itachi could not accept that. The thought that she could suddenly disappear from his life was sickening.

"But what if you got to live a full life? Would you still refuse me then?" he asked in all seriousness.

"I…"

"If this thought is not revolting to you, I swear I will do all in my power to allay your fears and let you live until you are old and wizened."

And once more, her traitorous heart clenched, sending suspicious moisture gathering in her eyes—or rather, her orbits, which felt as empty as her heart. Could he fill it like her tears were filling them?

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Katana: Japanese sword

Wakizashi: short sword used mainly for close-range combat

Ronin: masterless samurai


	42. Christmas Cheer

Welcome back for yet another chapter! Sorry for the lateness, but university kinda took all my free time away! (Seriously, Thursday, I went all "Fuck! I haven't written a single word of the next chapter yet!" and hurried to a computer. Yup.) Now, in Japan, Christmas is a time for couples, which is why Itachi wants to spend time alone with Sakura (oh yes, he does manage to), so I based this chapter around that conception, which is quite different from Westerners' vision of Christmas. Ah, well. You'll see. And since you guys like omake, I added one at the end of this chapter. I hope you'll like it!

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Christmas. Such an annoying holiday. When was the last time she had feasted on a holiday, anyway? With friends, though, for since Sasuke had walked out on her—them, all of them—she had had no romantic life to speak of. Years, at least. Wars were never that conducive to playing and drinking all night long.

And she quite honestly had never thought she would spend Christmas Eve with the group staying at her house at present.

"Tachibana-san, Ishika-san, please go down to the village to buy some nori and rice. Genma-san, Kakashi-san, Gai-san, I'll let you fish our dinner. Akawa-san, please prepare the dining room and take some okayu to my patients. I'll check in on them momentarily. Satsuki-chan, Itachi-san, you will help me in the kitchen."

"What are we making, sensei?" asked Itachi even as Satsuki yelled "Yaaaaay!" loudly, hugging the smaller girl tightly to her chest.

"Well, it is Christmas. I thought I could at least cook something edible—I was actually quite hopeless in the kitchen until I spent a few months apprenticing under a sushi chef—so I'll be making sushi and ikizukuri."

Somehow, everyone had trouble imagining her to be unable to cook anything decent while she offered so simply to make delicacies for them. And yet, Sakura herself knew that at one point in time, she had been beyond help—almost. If it hadn't been for that undercover mission…She wondered idly if her old sushi chef had set up shop yet. She might have to visit him sometime.

"That is truly a youthful menu, sensei!" boomed Gai.

"Maa, will there be sake?" asked Kakashi, managing to sound lazy despite the interested and content glint in his eye.

"Hai. I don't know how, but people learned that I like sake, so I frequently receive bottles in thanks. I keep them down in one of the side caves."

Genma and Kakashi shared a knowing glance. There weren't many pink-haired blind children who frequented pubs like she did. And the ninja grapevine being what it was…

"And I have some tea, too, for those who would prefer a non-alcoholic beverage. Well, let's get going, we have much to do before tonight."

-:-

There was such enthusiasm as Sakura put the still living fish on the table that she couldn't help but stand back, a soft smile on her face, as she looked at her impromptu family. And then she stilled as the thought crossed her mind. Family? Yet another glance at the various males and female was enough to anchor that thought firmly into her. Yes. Somehow, they had all become something of a family to her. With a chuckle, she left them to fight for the ikizukuri, chopsticks poised and used rather like kunai would be, as she went to check on her patients. The boisterous sounds of the party sounded behind her, muffled slightly by the shoji door.

She stopped first at the kitchen to get the remaining sushi plates—it was Christmas for everybody—and went straight to her patients' room, knocking gently before coming in.

The occupants of the room looked up, getting to their feet to help her unload her precious cargo—well, those who could, anyway.

"Here. I brought food for all of you. Ah, thank you," she said as they took the large plates from her, leaving her hands free.

She kneeled next to the only other female in the room.

"I'm sorry for forcing you to stay in your room, but Satsuki-chan is very impressionable. Seduction missions gone bad lead to very nasty results that she doesn't need to see."

The female opened her eyes tiredly, looking at her with understanding.

"Hn…I suppose not. I _was_ quite a mess when I was brought here."

"Well…you should be able to go home by New Year's Eve, but while I may have healed your body, I'd suggest you go to a psychologist when you return. If only for good measure."

The woman stared at the ceiling unblinkingly, a rather dead expression on her face.

"You think they broke me inside, ne, sensei?" she asked with a touch of bitterness.

Sakura removed some bandages on the woman's arm, saying calmly but with certainty that no one else but her could decide whether or not she was broken.

"It is, however, frequent that when seduction missions go wrong, women end up in pretty bad shape. Many of them were changed forever. Let's make a deal: when you are deemed mentally sane by your psychologist, come back to see me and I'll drink sake with you until the wee hours of morning."

Would the woman take the bait?

_I know you like sake, your teammates mentioned that some time earlier._

The woman looked at her teammates who were deliberately giving them space to talk—they never were that engrossed in eating.

"Heh…Alright, sensei, I'll hold you up to that promise," she shrugged with something that could have passed for a chuckle.

In their corner, the males erupted into cheers, pumping their fists in the air as they yelled that they were going to have their teammate back.

"Che…I guess I owe you that much for getting me out of there in one piece," snorted the woman, even as her teammates crowded around her happily.

Having examined her already, Sakura disappeared inconspicuously, remembering times when she had been part of a team, too.

But no more.

"Sensei."

The quiet word took her out of her memories; she found herself in front of Itachi—or rather, he was in front of her, and had clearly been waiting for her.

He held his hand out for her to place hers in his.

"Please walk with me."

Something indefinable in his tone compelled her to take his hand and follow his gentle lead. They walked in companionable silence out of the house, feeling like talking would ruin the moment.

Once outside, both covered with warm haori, they walked a ways away from the house, the fresh snow crunching under their feet until they took to using chakra to keep from disturbing the pristine grounds.

"There are a number of things I like about you, sensei," said Itachi almost to himself, his tone so introspective Sakura didn't say anything in answer. "And yet, strangely, I do not mind, whereas I usually stay away from people. I am not used to chasing after people; it is generally the contrary. And you…at first glance, you are very warm and welcoming…yet you are more aloof than even I."

There wasn't much Sakura could say to that. Itachi was very perceptive, much more so than the average shinobi, although she supposed he must have considered her words of the previous day very thoroughly, giving him quite an insight into her way of thinking.

"I do understand that you expect to die soon, though I cannot fathom why, but I will reiterate this, sensei: I like you and I will not let you die. If you keep from getting emotionally involved because you expect to die soon, if that is what keeps you from accepting me…"

"Things are much more complex than that, Itachi-san," replied Sakura, "Though I do believe you like me—and it is indeed flattering. However, there is nothing to indicate that you will still feel the same in a few years—it is proven that hormones can make one's feelings change during adolescence. Besides, one you mature more, you may wake up one day to find that I am not the right person for you."

"That can happen at any point in one's life. As a ninja, I have a life expectancy that is lower than that of civilians. I do not wish to die regretting anything. I have resolved to win you over, Sakura-sensei," he said, turning to face her fully. "I will wait for you, but I cannot leave before giving you proof of my intentions and my seriousness."

_Eh? Wait, what?_

What was he—Why was he stepping closer? What—

Something soft yet firm and very, very warm pressed against her cheek. And all thoughts promptly came to a halt.

-:-

Itachi stepped back slightly, opening his eyes to see that Sakura had become very still. A pale pink blossomed on her downy cheeks, rivalling that of her hair. How cute; despite the urge to take her in his arms and kiss her again, he abstained from moving, knowing the situation was precarious and could turn sour really quickly if he did one wrong move.

"You may not be mine yet, Sakura-sensei…but I am yours, today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and very other one after that until the end of both of our lives."

_Until I die, I will like you, and even if you die, I'll still like you. Do you understand, sensei?_

Her cheeks turned bright red, and they weren't burning from the cold. And he—he felt like he couldn't breathe, something was clenching inside him, but at the same time, there was something warm and bright spreading in him, something more powerful than any jutsu he knew.

Unthinkingly, he made to step forward.

"Sensei…"

"Stop!"

Her yell, more than her outstretched arm, made him halt instantly his movement.

"I…Argh…I…" she hawed uncertainly, raking a hand through her hair impatiently. Why couldn't things be simple? She recognized very well that suspicious warmth in her chest; it had been years since she had felt it; for that male's younger brother, in fact. And despite her liking him, he was still someone who would exterminate his entire clan, she was still a time-traveller who knew all too much of the future. Would she once again have to choose between going with the flow or make a stand and hope for the best? Did she dare to?

_Would it even change anything if I accepted to get in a relationship?_

-:-

Omake

"I swear I will catch more fish than you, my eternal rival!" boomed Gai exuberantly, thumbs up and rising sun full on behind him.

Kakashi barely looked up from his book. Next to him, his fishing rod, planted firmly in the frozen ground, shook suddenly.

"Ah! How fortunate of you!" cried the green-clad man, swishing his own fishing rod in the process—Kakashi thought to himself that if he continued this way, there was no way he would win. He would frighten all the fish away.

Somewhere to his left, further up the river, Genma put a fish in his basket. His silent dedication to his task definitely made him more successful than either Gai, with his too-enthusiastic movements, or himself, with his apathy, were.

"Hn…" he hummed absentmindedly as Junko seduced yet another ninja—in much graphic details.

Still…maybe he should try harder to catch their dinner. He did look forward to eating Sakura's handmade ikizukuri, and she really could not cook such a dish with a puny fish. With a soft clap, he closed his precious book and put it back in his pocket—it wouldn't do if his treasure got wet with snow.

He took his fishing rod, getting to his feet, and nodded determinedly.

"Let's fish."

Somehow, the three managed to bring back enough fish for the whole group—and more—but got completely wet. In fact, Gai had bodily plunged into the river to wrestle with a gigantic fish, yelling something along the lines of "youthfulness" and "proof of manliness" relating to fish. He had disappeared down the waterfall before resurfacing in the pool at the bottom, holding the monstrous fish victoriously above his head.

And then Sakura had to heal the black eye Gai had gotten during his manly pursuit of food—apparently, fins could be quite an efficient weapon.

All in all, it was a normal fishing session.

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Ikizukuri: a Japanese delicacy that consists of a live fish being filleted, gutted, sliced into thin slices and served on a plate with the heart still beating

I forgot to answer some questions last chapter, so here is: not having eyes doesn't mean you don't have tear ducts, which means you can technically still cry. As you've gathered, this is now winter, and they are still nine—or at least appear to be. One of my reviewers mentioned that she had just realized Sakura was technically a pedophile. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why Sakura keeps from getting into a relationship with Itachi, despite his maturity. Ah, morals, where would we be without them?


	43. She Who Has no Future

Thanks for the reviews, guys! It's always nice to hear from you. I'm glad you think this is original and that you don't know where I'm going with it (it wouldn't do to be _too_ predictable). I don't know about being super talented at writing, but at least I've got enough imagination to compensate for it, eh?

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This was dangerous. Quite so, in fact. And Sakura was intelligent enough to recognize it as such.

"I do not love you, Itachi-san," she said at length.

"But you may one day," completed Itachi, sounding much too sure about his words, "if you give me a chance."

"Aa, I may. Or I may not," she said, turning away from him, feeling cold all of a sudden.

"Nobody knows the future. And yet, I feel quite confident when I say that I can get you to like me."

"I don't hate you, Itachi-san," she replied, even knowing that wasn't what he meant and even less what he wanted to hear.

"But you do not love me either. Not yet, at least."

Once again, she could only agree.

"Then give me a chance to prove that I am the right person for you."

It was all he could ask, really.

Sakura found herself in turmoil. Logically speaking, she knew that she _could_ be happy with him, if she let herself be. She could, but…there was the whole Uchiha Clan massacre to take into account. And…her whole "I-am-from-the-future" problem, too, she thought with a mental cheerless chuckle.

"Should you be the right one for me, it would still be impossible for anything to happen between us, Itachi-san," she said at long last.

The young boy felt his insides freeze with disappointment, and his next inquiry made him sound more like the child he was than he would have liked.

"Why?" he asked, voice breaking.

"Because she is deathly ill. Ne, sensei?" said a mature voice behind him, making both him and Sakura twirl around in surprise and, in the girl's case, a good measure of fear.

-:-

_How did he know?_ wondered Sakura, tensing noticeably.

"I wondered for a long time what was that faint odor hidden beneath the smell of medical herbs clinging to you. And I understood yesterday, when you talked about your feeling that you wouldn't live long. You're dying, aren't you? That's why you try to stay aloof, despite your compassionate character."

"Kakashi-san…"

She hugged herself, feeling quite vulnerable. Of course he could smell her! she berated herself. He had a nose keener than anybody's, save the Inuzuka.

"So you did know…" she whispered, falling to her knees in the snow. In her numb state, she didn't feel the cold bite of the snow. She did, however, feel it very strongly when the two males approached her cautiously.

"Please don't. I hate pity," she murmured brokenly.

"What ails you, exactly?" wondered Kakashi out loud.

Sakura bit her lip. Should she tell them? Then again, if she didn't, they would probably extrapolate much more extravagant illnesses than she would like them to. In the end, she pushed herself to her feet and gestured for them to follow her silently. It wasn't hard for them to sneak past the ongoing party and into her bedroom, two of them in curiosity and one full of dread.

"You should understand immediately," murmured the medic as she began to untie her obi, marveling at the wonder that was her hands not shaking.

The decorative string fell to the floor, then the long length of the obi, followed by the colorful kimono and then the inner kimono. And then she turned around. Her torso was one big scar.

They hadn't noticed previously because her hair covered her back, but whatever had caused that humongous had obviously gone straight through her body. There were other scars, but that one was the most prominent, and even they, who had seen the war and scars that resulted from it, had never seen anything like that one.

Of course they wouldn't, thought briefly Kakashi to himself. Anybody with a wound that big would normally have died.

His first question was "What happened?"; the second, "How did you manage to survive?".

For a long moment, Sakura remained studiously silent, preferring to mull her words over while she donned her clothes once again. She then sat down properly, inciting them to imitate her own seiza.

Silence reigned as both males waited with bated breath for her to say anything.

"I am not a sheltered little girl," she began. "War took much from me, and this body of mine is just an expression of it. As you can see, I should have died—I would have, if someone hadn't used an experimental medical jutsu on me. And it wasn't perfect. For the most part, it did stick me back together, but my body is no longer stable, meaning I, for lack of a better word, break apart with recurring frequency. It is as though the glue that sticks me together is dissolving, and so I'm coming apart."

The two could only try to grasp their mind around the concept, being no medics themselves.

"So…what can you do about it?" asked Itachi unsurely, wondering if he was going to lose her without having even won her beforehand.

"I heal myself. Regularly. That's the only thing I can do."

"But…What about that jutsu? It must be miraculous if it could save your life," wondered Kakashi. Could it be possible that Tsunade had been the one to save her? She was the only one he could think about who could possibly have enough knowledge to create such a jutsu.

Sakura shook her head negatively with such firmness that they knew her next words were some she had thought long and hard about.

"It can't be used on me again. Not without killing me."

"Then what? Are you just going to die one day, when your body defeats your attempts at healing it?" asked Itachi, emotions coloring his usual apathetic tone.

"What other choice do I have?" she retorted, stung. "I can't just try to reverse the jutsu, and I certainly can't try to cast it on myself, even improved! The best I can do is live the best I can, day after day, until one day I simply don't wake up!"

It was clear the conversation was over.

-:-

Sakura woke up slowly. She was warm, content. She didn't want to move, really. Still, she supposed she would have to, eventually.

A soft exhale ruffled the hair on the back of her neck, making her tense instantly. What the—?

_Itachi-san._

That warmth pressed against her back, those arms pressing her close as though she was going to disappear at any moment, she knew them.

_How did we end up sleeping in the same futon?_

She wracked her brain, trying her best to remember. To no avail.

_How useless._

Well, it didn't matter all that much. He had probably slipped in with her at some point.

She carefully slipped away, managing not to wake him up in the process. Nor any of the males sprawled up in a disorderly manner across every corner of the room.

-:-

Itachi woke up before anybody else. Everything was silent in the room—except for the various snores. Within moments, however, he realized that Sakura was nowhere to be seen. Fear gripped his heart. Had she left because she was angry at him? She was not a very forthcoming person and he and Kakashi had pried more than they probably should have, leaving her feeling attacked when she was at her most vulnerable.

He threw the comforter off, getting to his feet fluidly. Where was she? He had to find her!

_Concentrate, find her chakra signature…_

There were many people in the house, most of them in the same room as him. And he already knew most of them. Now, where was she?

Without long, he found her—outside, as it may be. Did she love cold weather? he wondered as he went outside to join her.

-:-

Sakura didn't give the slightest hint that she knew he was coming towards her, merely sitting calmly on the veranda.

"Good morning, sensei."

"Itachi-san," she acknowledged with a nod in his direction.

The young heir carefully sat down next to her. He could feel that beneath her calm exterior, her heart was in turmoil. He felt a pang, knowing it was most probably because of him.

"Sensei, I…wish to apologize for yesterday. It was uncouth of me to pry."

The medic smiled gently at him, somewhat sadly. He found himself thinking that such a smile should not appear on a face so young.

"Hn…Worry not, Itachi-san. It just…showed me that I may not have accepted my death as much as I thought I did."

"Death," he told her emphatically, "is not something I want you to accept when it means your own, sensei."

Once more, a strange warmth appeared in her chest, one that had nothing to do with her illness of sorts. Still, she pressed a glowing hand to her chest, as though her medical chakra would ease it.

"Does your chest hurt?" asked Itachi instantly, clearly worried. After their discussion the day before, it was understandable, but it did make her smile as she shook her head.

"Iie. Not this time."

The sun rose over the trees, illuminating the house. Soon, everyone would wake up, many suffering through hangovers, and they would not be alone anymore.

"I will brew some tea that will help with everybody's hangovers. Come with me?" asked Sakura gently in a rather obvious attempt to distract him.

Even knowing so, Itachi agreed. Any time with her was better than none at all.

"Despite my last words yesterday, my goal has not changed, you understand. I am still going to win you over."

"I look forward to seeing you try," she said with a smirk.

"I am very good at undertaking challenges and coming out victorious," he replied with his own smirk. "Just a warning. To be fair."

"Of course."

It was with lightness that the both of them went back inside.

-:-

"No more sake for me," groaned Genma as he stepped into the kitchen, guiding himself more by touch and smell than using his eyes—a hangover really was a terrible thing.

"Well, well, look at who's woken up," taunted Sakura gently. "How about some medicinal tea, then?"

"If there's any chance of it diminishing that headache of mine, then by all means, sensei," he said, closing his hands on the small cup she pushed into his hands.

More and more zombies began to trail into the kitchen, only to revive after a few moments and a fair share of tea.

This, found Sakura herself thinking, was life. Smiling, joking, acting as freely as you wanted. That was the kind of life she had always dreamed of having, the life that had been robbed by Uchiha Madara. A life that was worth living, with people she could easily qualify as friends. Even Itachi was opening up. A bit.

Really…She had to stop looking at the world as it went past her, she thought as she laughed at Gai's antics.

_None of them deserves what happens in the future._

Someone sat down next to her calmly.

_Alright, then. Might as well put my knowledge to good use._

Someone orange.

_It may not be the best thing, but it's the _right_ thing to do. Fuck the consequences. You'd be proud of me for finally getting a grip, eh, Naruto? Look at me, I'm gonna create a world in which you and Hinata-chan will be able to live together happily!_

"It seems you feel better," came the voice of the toad, low enough that no one else would hear them.

_This time, I'll make sure I don't create ripples but whole _waves, she thought. _As I should have done in the beginning._

"I do."

And she really did.

_I finally know what to do._

"I'm gonna kick ass," she murmured strongly, quite intent. The toad smiled.

"Then I can leave in peace, now that I am sure you are going to do the right thing. Jiraiya-sama will be warned."

"Tell him he'll be proud of me. Even he's gonna feel the repercussions of the things I'm going to do."

_Hell yeah. No more gloves, this time I'll make sure to thwart your every plan, Madara. Starting with the Uchiha Massacre. Shannaro!_

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Mostly introspective chapter, really. And I hate it, it felt like nothing was flowing right, so I apologize if it feels choppy. Still, pretty important!


	44. Spin the Wheel of Fate

I'm SO sorry for the lateness! My social life kept me from my computer most of the week, and I've just now come back home. Still, please enjoy. I promise the next chapter won't be so long in coming!

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Sakura managed to convince Itachi, Kakashi, Gai and Genma to return to Konoha for New Year's Eve with the help of Jiraiya's summon. She appreciated their company, but she knew that they were all competent ninja whose services would probably be required soon. She could not, in good conscience, force them to babysit her much longer. And so she waved them goodbye as they ran off, hoping they would get her message to the Head of Konoha's Hospital without delay. She was pretty sure that if word got out that she was willing to accept coworkers, civilians or ninja alike, as well as apprentices, in the medical sphere, rumours would spread very rapidly across the village.

She would need the help, really. She was becoming renowned and more and more patients were coming to see her. Recruiting some personnel was only logical.

And so she sent Satoshi to get more medical paraphernalia, especially bandages, at the nearby town. Meanwhile, she sent all of her hawks to the villages that shared their names with the same message she had sent to Konoha. Now, she could only wait while her apprentice helped her heal her patients and Toranosuke was sent to travel across the lands, spreading word that she was willing to heal anybody, accepted anybody to work for her as long as said person respected her neutrality policy, and could send a medic to anybody who needed medical help.

Well, Toranosuke hadn't been enthused at first with his mission, convinced that as soon as he left Sakura's home, hunter-nin would hunt him down. That had been quite a dilemma, but Sakura had then remembered the word she had carved in the back of the only man who had dared to defy her rules.

Myou. Destiny. How fitting it would be.

With a small chuckle to herself, she had painted the same kanji on the back of his clothes with white paint that contrasted sharply against the dark colors he favored.

"Here. People will recognize that kanji, I'm sure of it," she said as she handed him a scroll in which she wrote the same message she sent him to convey, just in case people didn't believe him."Word is out that I engraved that word on _that man's_ back. This should be sufficient protection."

With a promise to come to his help should he need it, Sakura sent him off.

She should have at least until some days after New Year's Eve before she got visitors outside of the usual patients. That should give her enough time to arrange for any future helpers to get a room for themselves.

-:-

Toranosuke was not very much appreciated, wherever he went. It was no surprise, seeing as he was a nuke-nin, but the previous months, being treated normally at Sakura's place, had accustomed him to being accepted. It had been cozier than any place he had been to since he had defected. Maybe he had been spoiled by Sakura.

Therefore, it came to a surprise that he was greeted almost cordially at one of the villages he stopped by. He even got to explain what his mission was without getting interrupted by some suspicious glaring man or another.

"My only son is really sick," said the mayor. "Our doctor doesn't know what's wrong with him. If your master really is as good as you say she is, send her here. If she manages to heal my son, I'll make sure she is paid handsomely."

"I'll send her a message, though if she is busy, she may have to send her apprentice. Please give me as many details as you can about your son's illness."

On his shoulder, Konoha screeched as if in agreement and flapped his wings. It seemed he was ready to carry the message home to the pink-haired medic.

-:-

Sakura received the scroll with a smile and read it with deep satisfaction, her smile widening. She handed it to Tohru, stroking Konoha's feathers gently. The blonde read it carefully before giving it back to her.

"Will you go, sensei? It would be a good opportunity to make yourself known among the civilians."

"It would, wouldn't it?" she said theoretically with a knowing smile. "It thought you would see it that way. Tachibana-san has done well. Except _you_ will be going in my stead."

"Me?" asked the young man in surprise. "What if I can't heal the boy? That would put you in a difficult position."

"Do not worry so. You are my apprentice. Be proud of that. I am quite sure you can handle it. Still, I understand your reservations. I will send a clone of myself with you, just in case the illness is more serious than I anticipate it to be. Still, you will be the one to diagnose the boy and treat him. For now, reread the symptoms Tachibana-san included in the latter and take whatever medicine you think you may need from my stores in the cave. You leave tonight."

She felt rather like a mother whose son was moving away from home, she mused as she saw Tohru disappear with Konoha and her clone in the snowy forest. It was a strange feeling.

"Eeeeh? Where's Tohru-kun going?" wondered Satsuki, winding her arms around Sakura as usual. She laid her head on the younger girl's crown of hair, humming pensively.

"He's going away for a while. He's going to heal a young boy. It'll be just us two for a while. Now, what say you to a hot cup of tea?"

The aristocrat was sufficiently distracted and, with a cheer, hopped off toward the kitchen.

-:-

By the time Tohru arrived, rather frazzled, at the town, Toranosuke had been spotted by hunter-nin who seemed like they didn't quite know what to make of him—or rather, of his strange situation.

In fact, he had been getting ready to fight when, to his relief, Tohru had appeared. Even though he didn't like him and the feeling was mutual, he knew that the blonde wouldn't do anything to jeopardize Sakura's standing and reputation.

"Tachibana-san. Seems that you go caught in a sticky situation, ne?" asked the apprentice with a small teasing smirk.

"Shut up, teme. Get out of here if you aren't gonna help me get out of this mess," he snarled, not taking his eyes off of the hunter-nin standing by.

"I get it, I get it," said Tohru, putting his hands up in a clear sign that he gave up arguing.

Still, he seemed about to walk off, which didn't amuse Toranosuke at all.

"Stop acting like children, boys," sounded a familiar voice, the one that he favored at the moment, for it could only spell good news for him.

At once, everybody looked to his left, spotting immediately the bright pink hair of the diminutive medic.

"I may be only a clone, but what I say, I say for my original. Tachibana-san is here on my orders. Anybody who lays a hand on him makes an enemy of me. Tachibana-san bears my mark on his back. Furthermore, he has a scroll in which his mission and affiliation is clearly stated. If you still can't believe the truth and harm him, your village will be the one to suffer from the loss of my expertise."

-:-

Sakura smiled to herself as her clone popped out of existence and its memories were instantly transferred to her. It seemed she held enough sway to keep people from attacking her people, after all. That was good. It meant she was now an entity the ninja world recognized as quite important—and with the mission she had sent Toranosuke on, so would the civilian world.

And yet she felt wretched. She didn't like politics and to be forced to excel at them didn't make her any happier than it had when she had been Tsunade's apprentice.

_It's for the best. I'm not doing it to further my own ambitions. But it's annoying as all hell._

If it meant she could make a difference…

Well, she first had to placate a certain daimyo by healing his daughter.

"Satsuki-chan! Come here! I'll have a look at your head now!" she called out loudly.

"Ooooh, with the pretty green light?" asked the aristocrat.

"Aa. You like it, ne?" she said with a smile, happy that at least she didn't have to fight the girl. It made her assignment easier, though she felt frustrated that she didn't make as much progress as she would like to. Of course, she had other obligations to cater to, but this…this was important, not only for the sake of her future village, but also for Satsuki.

And then there was Uchiha Madara and his plans. However could she start to undermine them?

-:-

Itachi was strangely quiet as he returned home, to the point that even his mother felt that something was off with him. He was more silent than usual, more introspective, and it seemed as though something was troubling him.

Still, Mikoto knew her son well enough to know that it was best to leave him alone while he contemplated whatever was troubling him. He would talk to her if necessary. She only had to wait.

It didn't take him long to open his heart to her, which she both rejoiced in and found unusual.

"Okaa-san, I have failed you."

Her rice bowl slipped out of her hands at his calm admission, rolling on the table and spilling its contents across it. At that moment, she was glad that the other members of her family weren't home for dinner as Itachi would never have shown vulnerability in front of them.

"Itachi-kun? What troubles you?" she asked him, trying not to let her many emotions show in her voice. If she overwhelmed him, he would never open up to her again. This was a chance she could not let pass through her fingers.

"You have taught me to be a gentleman, okaa-san, but I failed you. I know a man is supposed to give a gift to the woman he cares for at Christmas, but I didn't prepare any gift for Sakura-sensei. I failed in my duty to her, failed as a son, and shamed the Uchiha Clan. Please forgive me, okaa-san," he finished, bowing his head to her.

She didn't know whether to be horrified he took his honor that far or amused that he was troubled by the fact that he couldn't prepare a gift for the girl he loved.

_How cute._

"Well, my son, if you want to redeem yourself, think long and hard about a suitable gift. I understand that there were circumstances that kept you busy enough that you didn't have time to look for a gift. If you send one to her, I, as matriarch of this family and wife of the Head of the Uchiha Clan, will hereby forgive your misstep in etiquette."

Much to her internal amusement, Itachi seemed to consider her words very seriously before nodding firmly, a determined gleam in his dark eyes.

"I shall do so, okaa-san. I will make you proud this time."

_I am already proud of you, my son._

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Short, I know, but this is all I can write this week. See you next time!


	45. Growing Changes

Welcome to another chapter! Thanks for the reviews, everyone, I read and appreciated every last one of them, even though I may not have always answered or used the advice and ideas you kindly gave me. Hope you like this chapter, it's kinda the beginning of a new arc.

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There were many changes in the following weeks. For one, Sakura had to expand her domain, as quite a few medic-nin came to her to further their education in their chosen domain of expertise. She did appreciate their help in healing new patients, for there was a wave of illnesses in civilians and ninja alike due to the cold weather. She did require of them the same neutrality she had asked of Toranosuke, Tohru and Satoshi, even going as far as warning them that if they intended to cause any trouble, there would be no mercy. However, if they kept their vow of healing anybody and anyone who came to them, she would share with them her knowledge of medicine.

And so she created clones to help her build two additional stories to her already large house, hoping it would be enough until the ground unfroze and they could build other buildings.

Satoshi was a good aide in that time, helping her settle everyone and generally being more diplomatic with some of the more difficult medics than she had the patience to be. She could luckily count on him to make things run smoothly in the household while she healed people. Still, there were problems she had no choice but to face.

"Ojou-sama, with the arrival of more people, we will need a new food source, lest we lack enough nourishment for everybody," he pointed out to her one night, after everyone had finally gone to bed and she alone was left working on the paperwork he could not do.

"I know, I have thought of this as well. For now, there is a sufficient stash of food in the cave, but I do wish Tachibana-san and Ishika-san would come back soon with the money from the mission. Come spring, I will buy honeycombs. Honey is both a good ingredient in medicines and a food that can be kept for a long time without spoiling."

"It would be advantageous if some merchants settled around here. They would attract customers and be able to cater to many of our needs," replied Satoshi with a nod, scribbling down 'honeycombs' on his list of things to get/buy/create.

"Aa," agreed, Sakura, running a hand through her hair. "However, this will be difficult to do unless we establish a village with enough medics to justify the presence of merchants. However, until we get merchants in permanence here, I suppose we could get caravans, if we created a road for them to pass through here. With the number of ninja who come here, the only reason we don't get merchants is that they can't travel here without a road to travel on. Tomorrow, if I have time, I'll take down some of the trees in direction of the village. There's already a road that gets to the village, so we can simply create a road from the village to here."

Satoshi blinked. For a moment, he had forgotten that she had inhuman strength and that it was quite possible for her to uproot trees like one would weed.

"That is good, ojou-sama, but please do so only when no patient requires your assistance."

"'Course. Patients are my priority," replied Sakura, waving a hand to dismiss the thought.

-:-

"Ne, is it just me or have we seen a lot of Uchiha stop by in the last few weeks?" asked one of the new medics one day at dinner.

Across the longer table they had set up in the now larger dining room, somewhere to his left, Tohru looked up with a small but mischievous smile. "Ah, that would be because the Uchiha heir is quite taken with our Sakura-sensei. He visited us in December, but didn't bring sensei a Christmas gift, as he didn't have enough time to prepare one. When he returned home, he used his influence to get all the Uchiha who pass through this part of the Hidden Countries to get healed here and, for the teammates of the ones who get hurt, to learn some medical knowledge so as to be able to heal their teammates even if there is no medic on their team. Sweet, ne?"

"And quite a good idea, too," agreed the middle-aged medic. "That way, they don't waste their time here. Maybe I should send word to my village to do the same…"

"Well, if you ask sensei, I'm sure she would gladly lend you one of her hawks to send your message."

"I think I'll do that. Where is she?" asked the man, looking down the long table, across the dining hall, frowning.

"Knowing her, she's probably with one of her patients. There was a group of Suna ninja who came in earlier. Seems they were in pretty bad shape. She was working with some of the less experienced medics to close their shallower wounds while some of the more experienced ones healed the more severe injuries. They probably haven't finished yet. Or she could be working on her poisons and antidotes in the cave again."

Both men nodded to each other knowingly, thinking of the strange child. Then the older one got up and, with a goodbye, brought his plate, bowl and chopsticks back to the kitchen.

-:-

When Sakura next heard of the Akatsuki, she had her hands in the stomach of a Kumo ninja and was pinching his intestines to keep him from bleeding internally while one of her new medics healed him.

"Sakura-sensei! There's a nuke-nin at the door!" bellowed a skittish young medic, wringing her hands as she erupted into the room.

Sakura had confined her senses to the room in order not to be distracted by the various ongoings of the house. Frowning, she stretched them out once again, immediately getting a much larger picture in her mind's eye.

_Ah…I should have expected him._

Her composure didn't change as she told the young woman to take him to a sitting room, bring him sake, and inform him that she would see him as soon as she had finished healing her patient.

"Sensei?"

"Go, I said, you're making me lose time and patience, and him too, probably. Knowing him, he'll make his way here whether you want him to or not unless you soon find him and placate him until I come."

-:-

Moments later, or so it seemed to Sakura, she left the room, going straight to the nearest sink to wash her bloody hands off. In the hall, many anxious eyes watched her carefully, cautiously, as she walked purposefully to the sitting room in which she could sense the nuke-nin's chakra rolling off of him dangerously.

They stayed on her until she entered the sitting room and closed the door behind her.

"Hello, Hoshigaki-san. It has been a while since we last saw each other. I thank you for not maiming any of my people."

The blue man, lounging casually, smirked and lifted his cup of sake slightly as a greeting.

"Heya there, chibi sensei. Happy to see me?"

"Should I be?" she replied with a raised eyebrow, crossing her arms across her chest.

"How cold you are, sensei," he said mockingly. "And here I came in peace. I was in this part of the world and decided to visit my favourite medic. Congratulations on your achievements so far."

"How sad that I can't say the same for you," she retorted dryly.

"Heh. If I told you what my organization is doing, we wouldn't be much of a secret organization, now would we?"

Sakura nodded, having expected as much.

"Hm…It doesn't matter. Destroying the world all to cater to one man's ambitions is meaningless. And _you_ will die in the process anyway. It's a pity. I actually like you. Under different circumstances, we could have been friends, I think."

Kisame shrugged, downing the contents of his cup in one gulp.

"I'm strong enough to survive, and even if I weren't, I'd rather die than betray the cause in which I believe."

"I know," answered Sakura, and the firmness of her sentiments, betrayed by her voice, made him pause for a moment. How strange. She seemed absolutely convinced he would do as he had told her, almost as though she had had a vision of times yet come to pass. Or she just had complete faith in his words.

"This world of truth he speaks of…I want to see it."

"I'd rather see a world of peace than a world that has been destroyed by a man's childish inability to accept that he may not have been the right man for the job he was denied, which further proves he wasn't."

Kisame twitched slightly. The way she put it seemed like his leader was nothing more than a frustrated child.

He had to get rid of the stirrings of doubt she ignited in him. He could not possibly let himself doubt his leader, lest he lost his faith in him, and then where would he be?

"What about _your_ world of truth, eh? Think you're better suited to changing the world than he is?" he asked with piercing intent. If she so much as showed a crack in her persona…

"'Course not. I firmly believe _nobody_ should rule the world. How the world should be governed is no decision a single man should take, for all men, despite however much they wished they were gods, can make bad decisions. Especially ones taken with a greedy mind and an angry heart."

Damn her for making this difficult. And damn her twice for him being unable to stay of ice in front of her. He couldn't remain unperturbed and could even less hate her.

Maybe he should kill her. And everyone who worked with her. Maybe that would stop his strange doubts from taking roots in his heart any further.

But as he looked at her, he found himself thinking that he could not do that.

_When did she manage to take a hold of my heart? _he wondered, noticing for the first time the depth of his feelings for the child. A mere _child_, at that!

He felt disgusted with himself. He had managed to successfully and without hesitation kill his teammates, his leader…why not her?

"Girl, you are one lucky female. I don't know what it is about you that makes me unable to kill you for siding against my ideals, but you may want to hold onto it. Now come here, I haven't received a welcome hug from you yet."

Sakura's lips twitched into a small smile.

"With what you just said, aren't you afraid I could decide to kill you? I could do it with a touch, as you well know. Or you could be lying and waiting for an excuse to kill me."

Kisame frowned, crossing his arms across his massive chest.

"If I had wanted to do that," he rumbled, "I would have carved a bloody path up to you when I first arrived and beheaded you where you stood. C'mere, little one, it's been a long time since I've hugged anybody, so feel privileged."

For a moment, Sakura cocked her head to the side, pondering his words. It was true that he would have done as he had said if he had had any intention to kill her, that much she was sure of. He was quite capable of doing it, so she could take his abstention as proof that he did not have any intention to maim her.

Might as well give him the hug he was asking for.

_Just a reward for not killing anybody_, she assured herself, trying to nip in the bud the niggling thought that maybe she, too, was getting more attached to him that was wise.

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Here ends yet another chapter! The 45th, too. I'm kinda impressed at myself for making it this far, considering when I first started this fic, I was convinced it was going to be much shorter than this.

Chibi: little, small


	46. The Pervert and the Lolicon

Somehow, the number of reviews I get when I write about Kisame seems to skyrocket. Maybe I should turn this into a KisaSaku. Haha. But I won't. (unless I get so many reviews begging me to write it into a KisaSaku or KisaSakuIta that I simply can't ignore them.) Enjoy more Kisame goodness!

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Sakura was no fool. Kisame being at her place meant that he had some time before having to report to his leader, which in turn meant that said leader was absent at the moment.

_Probably off corrupting some people's minds…Uchiha, if I'm not mistaken._

As thus, she did the only thing she could and sent a hawk to Itachi to warn him to be careful of clan politics.

She could only hope that would be enough.

"Chibi sensei, your mind is elsewhere."

Sakura nearly started, hearing his voice so close was unsettling.

"Hoshigaki-san, please do not sneak up on me unless you wish to get a kunai shoved into your gut."

"Your claws won't hurt me even if they sink into me," replied the tall man.

"Haha. I'm quite certain you would feel my bite," she replied dryly.

For a while, he remained silent as she continued to heal the profound gash she had made in his arm to show some of her newest apprentices how to do it. Said apprentices were rather intimidated by the admittedly imposing swordsman and barely dared to breathe in his presence, which made Sakura's job considerably more difficult, as she had to anticipate every question that they would otherwise asked.

"That gash's nothing. Did you know that your chakra feels mighty good? No wonder Samehada's so fond of it," remarked the nuke-nin.

"That's just creepy, Hoshigaki-san. Stop scarring my students for life. They're all quite innocent, compared to you, and I do have things to teach them, if you don't mind. If you do, however, you know where the door is; I'm sure I can find another volunteer to slice up."

Kisame settled back on his haunches with a roll of his eyes, flexing his fingers lazily as she manipulated his arm in her lap.

"Not everyone is as willing as I to let people carve their way into their bodies, be they skilled medics or not."

Smirking, Sakura replied that when he said things like that, it made him seem like a masochist. She snickered lightly, unable to help it as he reddened—or rather purpled, due to his blue complexion—at her words.

"If anything, I'm a sadist," he retorted proudly a moment later, which only served to make Sakura's students wither a bit more on the spot.

"Sure," replied Sakura mildly without faltering at his words are dangerous smile. "One thing I'm certain of, however, is that you like to hunt down little girls. And you can't deny that one, unless you're willing to admit you're here on some sort of mission."

Kisame grimaced, seemingly biting his tongue as he said: "Alright, you got me, I actually like you. You got me to say it. Happy now?"

"Quite, she replied smugly. "There, you're all healed up. How did it feel?"

"Comfortable. Your healing chakra is very soothing."

"That's because I'm just as good. Accelerating one's healing is not supposed to feel comfortable. On the battlefield, making sure healing doesn't hurt is not a medic's priority, but in a hospital, you can take the time to decrease the pain, if not outright stop it. With enough practice, you can eventually heal someone without pain without having to concentrate on making the pain disappear. Did everyone take note of this? Good. Next time you heal someone, try to practice this—unless of course time is of the essence. Dismissed."

It didn't really surprise her that the handful of students fled the room quickly, desperate to get away from the nuke-nin.

"I don't think they like me," commented Kisame idly.

"It's more like they're completely terrified of you. Which they wouldn't be quite as much if you didn't take so much pleasure in scarring them for life."

Kisame shrugged, muttering that she should not try to curb his fun.

-:-

Jiraiya was a curious man by nature and had long since learned to use his curiosity to his advantage, lest he die because he couldn't refrain from snooping or asking questions to people he should leave well enough alone. Still, even after those years of practice, he couldn't stop himself from listening _very_ intently when he heard news of the little girl he had taken in as his own.

And he found himself unable not to run to her when he heard of the progress she had been making with her village.

Especially when he heard that a certain blue mountain member of the Akatsuki was staying with her at the moment.

So he headed quickly to her home, inwardly noting how much it had changed since he had first met her, and didn't let her people stop him when they told him she was currently busy. His mind was dead set on seeing her, to the point that he was almost blind to everything else, and so he was quite flabbergasted when he opened the door to the room she was in quickly and was met with the sight of the little girl curled up like a cat on the Akatsuki's chest, sleeping quite contentedly while he relaxed.

"What. The. Hell."

The shark-like man opened his eyes lazily and had the gall to put a finger to his lips in a shushing motion.

"Shh. You'll wake up chibi-sensei from her nap, and she really needs her rest right now. She spent most of her day yesterday and the whole night healing a group of Kumo ninja."

The Sannin bit his lip, knowing the damn man had a point. Still, the situation didn't sit well with him. He knew that Sakura was all for neutrality, but he couldn't say he liked that she was associating with people as dangerous as Hoshigaki Kisame. And he wondered how she had acquired a friendship with him such that he would let her sleep on him so easily. In fact, any kind of contact with a nuke-nin that didn't involve any dismemberment was nothing short of a miracle.

With a meaningful glare at the other man, he sat down to the left of the room, close to Kisame but far enough that he wouldn't feel threatened by his presence. After all, he didn't know what the man would do to Sakura if he didn't feel safe anymore. He could easily turn on her if it meant his survival.

However, that didn't mean he was going to just up and leave, no matter how much faith the girl had in the shark man.

So he crossed his arms and entered a staring contest with the other man. Since neither of them was willing to look away first and both of them were quite headstrong, this could take quite a while.

-:-

Sakura yawned, feeling rested after her nap. She stretched slightly before curling up contentedly on herself, feeling very much warm, comfortably and safe.

And then she heard, simultaneously, a hearty chuckle and a low growl. And they weren't coming from the same direction.

_Kami-sama…_

She concentrated on the feeling of the second chakra signature, sensing her heart plummet even more as she ascertained that yes, she had guessed correctly.

"Hey, jiji," she greeted more meekly than she would have liked, for it only served to make her look like a guilty child.

Once more, Kisame chuckled, chest rumbling, and she felt a heavy weight settled on her. Kisame's arm, her mind supplied helpfully. And just as she was wondering why he was putting his arm around her, a loud growl reached her ears.

_Oh._

"Jiji…you don't really think there's anything going on between us…right?"

For a long moment, Jiraiya remained silent before hawing and saying that anything was possible. She was a really independent and mature child, after all…

"Wow. Even for you, that's heavy, jiji," she replied instantly tartly in a no-nonsense tone. "If anything, Hoshigaki-san is more like a big brother to me than anything, however much I annoy him and tell him he's a lolicon. That's just for kicks, 'cause his face then is worth a thousand yen. Though maybe I _should _get in a relationship with him, if you have so poor faith in me, just to get back at you. What do you say, _Kisame-kun_, want to get in a dirty, gritty and sordid affair with me?" she asked the man below her with a dark smirk.

"Why ever not," he replied with a smirk as deadly as hers. "I do so love the feel of your chakra in me and your little hands on my chest."

Before they could mess around any more, Jiraiya jumped up, crying out that he forbid it with a finger pointing at them like they were sinners, to which Sakura snorted and Kisame rolled his eyes.

"You _are_ aware that I'm bullshitting you, right?" she asked idly, getting up easily from her admittedly very comfortable perch. "At least pretend to have _some_ measure of faith in me, will you?"

With that, she left the room, presumably to check on her patients, pausing just long enough to tell them to act like men and keep from killing each other.

She had some measure of hope that she wouldn't come back to find them _too_ bloody.

-:-

As a sort of revenge on Jiraiya for acting like an idiot—somehow, she was reminded of Naruto, for he no doubt would have reacted the same way that he did—Sakura forced him to teach her seals and furthermore directed him to put many of them over the two new stories of her house.

She told him quite clearly that she intended to exploit him for however long he intended to stay. Which, according to him, was until Kisame left. And of course he had to say that in front of the nuke-nin, who then hugged her possessively to his chest and stated with a toothy smirk that he was going to stay as long as he like with his beloved .

Needless to say, it made for tense situations, especially since the blue man seemed intent to touch her considerably more often in the presence of the Sannin, even going as far as to pull her into his lap when they ate and feeding her with overdramatic gestures of affection.

It seemed that when he did this, the whole population of the house couldn't seem to tear their eyes away, somehow taken in by the sight like one would from looking at a morbid scene. They were always looking, unwilling or simply not daring to look away from the predator, completely subjugated as the two males fought over their prize which, sadly for her, was her.

Maybe all of that wouldn't have been so bad, really, if she wasn't suddenly reminded, one day during one such battle of wills, that there was another person who, quite literally, considered her to be his.

A message came from Suna, carrying within words of the Kazekage who, it seemed, had had enough time to mellow a bit about the whole situation she had caused in Sunagakure. If he wasn't exactly happy that she had pretended that she was going to kill his eldest son, he at least didn't outright ban her from his village, though she had avoided it as a measure of peace. And now he wished for her to come to see Gaara, as the young jinchuuriki had apparently expressed the wish to see her. And as his father didn't want him to go out of the village, he requested for her to come instead, lest his son act even more violently than usual to force the Kazekage to do his bidding.

Somehow, it didn't surprise her. And that Kisame started to chuckle at her predicament didn't, either.

What a life she had.

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I just love writing Kisame and Jiraiya. Does it show? ^^

I promise much action is coming soon, so keep the reviews coming!


	47. Life Upside Down

A few things need to be addressed before you go on reading. First, today is the first year anniversary of the beginning of this fic! Yay! Second, with the last chapter, we hit the hundred thousandth word notch on my bedpost. Haha. Double yay! Third, as of now, this fic is a KisaSakuIta one, and I promise that my ItaSaku fans won't feel that our poor Itachi is left out. (Damn, I didn't know I had so many KisaSaku fans out there reading this story! If you want, I wrote a KisaSaku fic named The Monster that was Man Enough. It's a bit dramatic, but I've been told it's good. And yeah, I'll probably write another KisaSaku fic soon, 'cause I just love the pairing.) Now you can go on reading.

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Leaving her village was done without much fuss. Jiraiya was used to it, and she shooed him out, telling him he had better things to do than hang around her place. As he argued, she told the same to Kisame. Satoshi simply wanted to come with her, but he was too valuable in the village. If she was not there, he had to stay behind to make sure the village was run smoothly. The only thing she could do to ensure that everything was fully covered was create two clones that would stay behind and instruct people while she was gone. She took one of the hawks' birdbaths, then slit her forearm deeply and let the blood pool into the stone basin until it was nearly full. Jiraiya then put seals all around the basin to stabilize the blood and keep it from drying and to link the clones to her blood. No matter how far she went, as long as she didn't die, they would remain in existence.

It was perfect.

With last orders to accept anyone who wished to be part of the village as long as they respected her neutrality rule, she took off for the warmer climate of Suna.

-:-

She was not quite sure how she would be received in Suna, considering the last time she had been there she had managed to singlehandedly piss off the Kazekage.

Apparently, it was not so bad. Maybe it was because she had healed many Suna ninja since then. The guards at the gate took one look at her pass and pink hair, noted the blindfold, and let her go in.

She supposed she should first go to the Kazekage Tower, since he was, after all, the one who required her presence.

He made her wait for quite a while before she got to see him, and she then waited until Gaara himself came. And while he had had mellowed somewhat over the months, he still made it quite clear that he had not appreciated her trying to kill his eldest son—or acting like she would.

One moment, nobody except them was there. In the other, with a swirl of sand, the small figure of the Kage's youngest child appeared in front of them, looking blasé as usual.

"Hello, Gaara-san," she greeted the jinchuuriki calmly.

"Pinky," he returned the greeting calmly.

"And here I had hoped you would have forgotten that damned nickname you gave me," she muttered darkly.

"Not a chance," replied Gaara with the slightest glint of amusement in his usually dead eyes.

"Thought so," she sighed. "It has come to my knowledge that you wished to see me."

Gaara stayed silent, only nodding once, and she was left hanging. In the end, she had to murmur a "yeah…" in hopes that he would expand on that thought. He didn't, but with one glance at his father who looked close to booting them out of his office, he disappeared with her in a swirl of sand.

He found himself in a deserted area with the girl he had wanted to see. Said girl was looking quite confused, in fact. But that didn't matter.

"I want to sleep," he said calmly before forcing her to sit back to a wall. As he put his head on her thighs and closed his eyes, she realized that this was his way of saying that he needed her.

It was sweet in a way, she thought as she eased some chakra into his head to pull him to sleep gently. Of course, he was too proud to say anything like that. She didn't say anything and merely lulled him to sleep, opening a scroll to read it while her other hand stayed in his hair, playing with the short strands.

_If he couldn't come to me, I guess he must have had a hard time sleeping. Oh well. Let him sleep all he wants. I've got a few days before my appointment._

And thus she spent most of her day stroking his hair and humming under her breath—and the other part was spent sparring with him or otherwise dragging him around to play mischievously like the kid he was supposed to be.

-:-

"What are you doing?" asked Gaara, feeling quite curious about the medic. She had scaled a wall and stayed upright, hanging upside down from the ceiling. That in itself wasn't so unusual a sight in a ninja village, but the fact that she stayed immobile and silent afterward certainly roused his curiosity.

"Until recently, I was very troubled, Gaara-san. I didn't know whether I wanted to live or if I should live at all. I know you understand the feeling. And many of the things I did I did not do out of my own free will but rather because I didn't have much of a choice. While that doesn't mean I was against doing them, it doesn't mean that my heart was light either. I wondered so many times whether I should be changing the way things are run…and whether I should be the one to change them. I often thought that the world seemed upside down. So I took to hanging from the ceiling, wondering if that way, I would see right again. And though things didn't seem to seem any more right, it did help me relax and feel calmer."

He couldn't understand, but then again, calmness was impossible for him. He never felt relaxed, but he supposed that if one could, that sort of meditative state would probably be of some use.

"Do you want to try?" she asked with a small smile.

"It won't work for me."

"Hn. So convinced despite having never tried. Come on, humour me. What can it cost you?"

Gaara scrutinized her with cold eyes. He could always say no, and with anyone else, he probably would have, but he knew by experience that she had good, if seemingly strange, ideas.

So he merely nodded sharply and walked up the wall to hang upside down like her.

-:-

Temari was afraid of her younger brother, like everyone who had heard of him was—everyone who wasn't psychotic, anyway. And having to look for him all over the village didn't exactly enthuse her. Rather the contrary.

_Why me? And where exactly did he go, anyway?_

She frowned, wondering not for the first time why she didn't have a normal little brother, one who was cute and whom she could pamper. Instead, she was stuck with an insane brother whose bloodlust never seemed to be assuaged. Why anyone who wish to spend time with him was beyond her. She did understand that the child medic did not have much of choice now that she was in the village, but she _could_ have chosen not to come. Declining an invitation made by a Kage was never wise, but doing it politely had been done before successfully.

And yet the girl had come and hadn't tried to run away, either. To her knowledge.

"Where could they be?" she wondered out loud.

Her words attracted the attention of a ninja passing by who jumped down next to her, startling her out of her thoughts.

"Can I help you?" asked the grown woman.

"Hm…Well, I'm looking for my little brother…Have for a while, actually. Have you heard news of any recent bloodshed?"

Yeah, asking it that way was crude and all, but when all things were said and done, this was the fastest way to know where Gaara had gone.

"Not to my knowledge, but I did see him a few hours ago in the southern district."

"Thanks, you may have just saved me a whole lot of trouble."

She left the ninja behind, knowing he would go back to his business, and darted off. Chances were he had left that district altogether, but on the off chance that he hadn't already, she would find him. She had gotten quite good at the "hunt-down-the-little-brother" game.

There was nothing in the southern district that screamed of blood and mayhem, but she did manage to find the young boy. And at first, she really thought that he was dead.

-:-

Gaara was plunged into meditation, so deeply that at first, he didn't feel his sister approach. It was only when she gasped that he opened his eyes and looked at her with a piercing gaze.

"What do you want?" he asked coldly.

Next to him, Sakura yawned, stretched cutely, and jumped down to the floor.

"Hey. What brings you here?" she asked with an encouraging smile.

"I was looking for my brother. We are needed at home."

"Hn. That is bothering me," replied Gaara.

"Come on, Gaara-san. It's not nice to make people wait for you. I know it can be annoying, but life isn't always fun. Men take their responsibilities, you know?"

"Then you come with me," he ordered, quite intent on making her suffer through a boring meeting if he had to.

"I have some errands to run before I return to my village. This would be a perfect time. That way, tomorrow, I won't have to bore you with them. And then we'll spend as much time as possible together before I have to leave, alright?"

To Temari's utmost surprise, Gaara agreed begrudgingly and disappeared in a swirl of sand.

-:-

By the time she left Suna, Sakura had healed most of the injuries Gaara had left her with after a spar—it was apparently a revenge for deserting him to suffer through a boring meeting all alone and had managed to coax the boy a bit out of his shell. She really needed to get him and Naruto in contact. Still, she supposed it really did help him to have someone around who wasn't afraid of him (or at least, much, much less than the average person) and who didn't treat him like a monster.

"Now, now, I have obligations too," she said in a placating manner when he frowned at her. "But don't worry. From now on, I'll probably be able to travel more than before, since my place is going well. Well, unless I piss off your father once more."

"That will not be a problem," he assured her firmly.

"Hm. You never know, I seem to have a tendency to ruffle people's feathers."

And with that, she took off, heading for her home with just the slightest detour by a village where she had to stop to see what kind of medical help she would send. Since it was on her way anyway, she had told Satoshi before leaving that she would go there herself and see what was what before coming back.

It wasn't much of a detour, but being out of her home—on the road—was something she had missed. It was liberating to run in the wilderness once more.

She had just sent word back to her home with one of her hawks and gotten a few miles away from the village when a voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Gah. Just a fucking child. I would have thought that my next sacrifice to Jashin-sama would be fucking better. Guess I'll have to head over to that nearby village like I first planned."

Her blood froze in her veins as she turned around and barely managed to dodge the swipe of the large weapon that would have decapitated her.

_Kami-sama, this time it's certain: I'm dead!_

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Not my best chapter, I know, but filler chapters are needed, once in a while. And I promise next time will more than make up for that, with a special appearance by Itachi!


	48. Immortality or the Lack Thereof

I'm quite in a good mood, which is why I'm posting this chapter early (note that it is also longer than usual). I can't wait to write the next chapter…I've been planning this for a loooong time…

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Blood rushed to her ears as she jumped back and landed in a crouch some feet away.

_If he lands a hit on me with that scythe of his, I'm as good as dead_, she thought, wondering with a clear head how she would manage to get out of this mess. Hidan was not part of Akatsuki yet. His acts were not restricted by the organization. He could do anything he wanted to without reprimand from his leader or partner—and that could very well prove to be her downfall. If he got her…

_Damnit! I'm not going to let myself die so easily!_

Her lips curled in a snarl as she let her bags drop to the ground. She managed to stop the next swipe of his scythe with twin kunai and deflected it war from her.

"Oooh…So you _do_ have some fighting spirit, little girl," drawled the immortal with a smirk. "Maybe you're not such a fucking unworthy sacrifice to Jashin-sama, after all."

_Great. Now he _really_ wants to kill me._

And she knew she would not manage to distract him from his goal. There was no way she could offer him anything that would make him go back on his wish to sacrifice her for his religion—or anybody, for that matter.

_Fighting it is, then._

Unfortunately, Hidan's style of fighting was a disadvantage for her, as she couldn't predict the movements of his scythe. With one tug, he could send it flying in an altogether completely different direction, so the only thing she could do was react quickly when he did so and keep her distance as much as possible.

_Good thing I didn't lay off my training,_ she thought as she ducked under another swipe of the three-bladed scythe. She silently thanked Tsunade for training her to evade most blows, as a medic couldn't allow himself to be injured on a battlefield, and Kakashi, too, for as a genin, she had always thought that his style of evading blows—while annoying when she was put against him—was damn beautiful. And useful, too, but that had come later on, when she had begun to wonder which style of fighting would be best suited to herself. And that had only pushed her to get as few injuries as she could during a battle.

_Uwah! That was close!_ she thought, jumping to the side. She couldn't afford to get distracted. Especially since she had much less reach than him when it came to body size. (Of course, it couldn't be any worse than with Kisame, but she hadn't fought the shark man in her child-like body.) Her super strength wouldn't be of much use if she couldn't land a single hit on him—though destroying the surroundings could not be a bad thing. If anything, it did lots for her self-esteem, as the guys that fought her always got this dumbstruck look on their face when she utterly destroyed the area.

_I need to be able to reach him!_

And then the solution came to her with startling clarity. Her hand went for a very specific scroll; it was almost ironically easy to open. And then the familiar weight of the handle of her gigantic battleaxe fell in her hands. Her fingers curled around the handle, extracting peace and power from it.

She ran at the nuke-nin decisively.

-:-

"Hey…did you guys feel that?"

"Huh? Yeah…The ground shook just now, didn't it?"

"An earthquake? It's unusual…"

"This earthquake is clearly unnatural. We should investigate it. Who knows what we may find."

"Hai, sensei!"

The four ninja swerved off, heading straight for the epicentre of the earthquake.

-:-

Earth exploded outward as Sakura slammed her foot down, using the resulting cloud of debris to hide herself.

"Where are you, little girl?~" said the Jashinist in a sing-song voice, brandishing his scythe calmly.

From the broken ground, two hands came up to grab his ankles and pull him into the earth. He quickly slashed at them before he could be immobilized, frowning when they disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"A clone, huh?" he said pensively.

As soon as he said so, Sakura appeared in front of him and rammed her elbow in his sternum, sending him flying a few feet away, clutching his stomach in pain.

"You fucking bitch! I'm gonna kill you!" he snarled, eyes flashing in anger.

"Like I'll let you do that," she retorted angrily, sending a volley of senbon flying at him, which he unfortunately deflected with his scythe.

_Damn, he handles his weapon too well even in close range._

"Look forward to becoming my guinea pig," she taunted in an effort to make him lose his cool. "I was just thinking I needed a little hands-on experiment. And since you're pretty much immortal…"

"You sick fuck! I ain't gonna become your toy!" he yelled, dashing in her direction. "Your death will come with _much_ pain, kid! And I'm gonna enjoy every minute of it!"

-:-

"Sensei…Maybe it's a battle. I think we should stay clear of it."

"It could be possible, Hana-chan, but if it is one of our comrades in need of assistance, we can't steer clear of this area and return to Konoha without going to investigate."

As they approached, they could hear clangs of weapons smashing together and smell the acrid stench of burning grass.

"Definitely a battle," noted the adult.

Soon they could sense two separate chakra signatures.

_It can't be._

The youngest member of the team darted ahead, eyes wider than usual, as he recognized one of the chakra signatures. Cries erupted behind him as his team struggled to keep up with his breakneck speed.

He stopped short as he came to the edge of a newly-created clearing.

"Hey! Was that really necessary?" grouched Hana as she came to a halt next to him, panting slightly.

"Wait…Isn't that…"

-:-

Sakura was fighting well, but even she knew that it was only a matter of time before she fell prey to Hidan's unpredictable scythe, as a second of inattention was enough for him to get an edge and strike her. He was also quite good at taijutsu, something she had to stay clear away of, as she had shorter limbs than him and, despite her abilities in that certain skill, was at a clear disadvantage because she had to get closer than him to be able to strike. Never mind the fact that she would have to go past his defense without getting hit by that annoying three-bladed scythe of his.

And then what had to be the worst event possible happened.

"That's Sakura-sensei!"

Startled out of her concentration on the battle at hand, she did what every genin did before learning harshly that it could be your downfall: she looked at the source of disturbance. And bit back a curse as she noticed a certain Uchiha's team—when had they gotten there and why oh why was it now of all times?

She couldn't bite back a yell of pain as Hidan's scythe sank in her left flank.

"Chikushou!"

Of all times, really…

She pressed a healing hand to her side, clenching her teeth as Hidan ingurgitated her blood and began to form his jutsu. Already, the lines were appearing on the floor.

"You guys get out of here!" she yelled, knowing they would only fall prey to the Jashinist. Hopefully she'd be able to stall him long enough that they would manage to get away.

The teacher nodded, knowing better than to contradict a ninja—he knew sometimes, sacrifices were necessary for the good of the majority and had long since learned to accept it. And he recognized that nuke-nin from the Bingo Book. They didn't stand a chance if they went against him.

"Come on, team," he said, turning away, "we must go now!"

Despite clearly feeling conflicted, they nodded one by one.

And then Sakura cried out in pain once more. And Itachi lunged at the Jashinist, fury shining in his usually impassible dark eyes.

-:-

_Iie. Not that_, Sakura found herself thinking, horror growing in her as Itachi ran at the cackling madman intently.

She forced her body to move toward the Jashinist, hoping against all hope that she would be fast enough to stop the Uchiha from playing right into Hidan's hand.

"Don't!" she yelled—but too late. Itachi swiftly plunged a kunai in Hidan's unprotected back.

Blood bubbled in her mouth; her body began to reflexively cough to get rid of the liquid, further accentuating the injury in her lungs, she noted distantly.

And as the silver-haired man laughed madly, she crumpled to the ground in pain, blood seeping down her back, gluing her clothes to her skin. The pain was intense, radiating through her body, rattling her bones, but she had to move, move before Hidan did so and sliced at the horrified Uchiha, before he was killed, move _now!_

With a grunt, she pushed herself off the ground, brandished her gigantic battle axe…

-:-

Sakura had doubled in pain the moment his kunai had pierced the man's back; a blood stain spread in the exact same place as his. It did not take much more than a fraction of a second for Itachi to realize that the man's strange Grim Reaper-like appearance was linked to Sakura receiving the same injury as him. Horror filled him as he came to realize that the wound was lethal. In a few minutes, her lungs would fill with blood and she choke on it, drowning on the very same liquid that granted her life.

He was petrified where he stood, a few feet away from the man, where he had jumped to once he had stabbed him.

_Kami-sama, she's going to die unless she heals herself!_

He had to get the man to concentrate on him, but how could he do that, knowing every attack he made on him would affect Sakura just the same.

But the man turned to him, muttering something about nuisances, and brandished his scythe above his head—and then a cry of battle echoed in the clearing and Sakura hurled herself at Hidan, axe in one hand as she rammed her shoulder in Hidan's back with all the strength she could muster.

The scythe's trajectory deviated harshly as the man tumbled, then flew off with a well-placed knee to his lower back, barely missing the Uchiha heir as he jumped back.

-:-

"Fucking bitch!" screeched the Jashinist once he realized he was out of the circle, rendering any injury he inflicted upon himself useless, as the female child would not be injured in turn.

He dug his fingers in the girl's side, where a bright crimson stain was blooming, delighting in her screams as she trembled on top of him, hacking sweet blood all over his face.

"Scream, bitch!" he hissed, grabbing her bodily to head back to his circle.

A shadow fell upon him swiftly and he only had time to utter a surprised "eh?", eyes widening, before the large blade of her battle axe separated his head from his shoulders.

"Mother fucker!" he cursed as his body, now no more than a puppet without strings, fell to the ground with the child. How the hell had he not seen that she had attached a chakra string to the handle of her axe and tugged on it to send the weapon straight for his neck?

"Fucking heeeeeeell!" he bellowed, pissed, as her head feebly turned in his direction, her pallid face streaked with tears, blood and grime but marred with a small, tired smile.

"Gotcha," she whispered, blood pouring out of her mouth rapidly.

-:-

How strange that she didn't feel any happier at having defeated him. He was practically immortal, and he was anyway a man as dangerous as the other members of the Akatsuki, even if he wasn't a member yet. But that didn't matter. She was _so_ tired…Sleeping sounded like a good idea at the time. A mighty fine idea, even. And she was already losing consciousness anyway.

"Sensei! Sakura-sensei! Don't sleep, stay with me!"

What a warm voice. She felt like she knew it. But where had she heard it before? Her thoughts were becoming more muddled.

"'Tachi?..." she gurgled feebly. Hands grasped her head, foring her to face her interlocutor—presumably—before something wiped the blood at the corner of her mouth. A thumb, maybe?

"Aa, that's me, sensei. Stay with me. You need to heal yourself, you hear me?"

The voice sounded more frantic than before. From what she could hear anyway—there was a rush in her ears, like she was close to a waterfall.

Heal? What a strange idea. She felt perfectly fine, like she was wrapped in smooth cotton in a warm bed before going to sleep. He had to be delusional.

She hummed lightly, satisfied with her thoughts, but then the comforting blackness that surrounded her encompassed her and she knew no more.

-:-

The medic's body slumped as though boneless in Itachi's arms, unmoving. Her chest stopped moving in an attempt to expel the blood from her lungs; her head fell back, the tips of her fingers became cold, and the pool of blood under her grew.

A heart wrenching cry tore out of the young boy's throat, so raw and heartbreaking that the members of his team looked away, feeling like they were intruding on something extremely personal, and even more so because the Uchiha never showed his feelings.

"Sensei! Iie! _Senseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeei!_"

And amidst it all, as snow began to fall and the boy's eyes burned, the lone head began to cackle.

-:-

Numb. That's all he felt as a man suddenly appeared in front of him, his black and white attire identifying him as a member of an ANBU team.

"I'll take her body back," said the voice of the man, slightly muffled because of his mask. He took the bloodied corpse and, with a small nod, disappeared as swiftly as he had appeared, leaving behind a broken boy who could only look at the blood stain on the ground, numb in shock and desperation. He didn't even have the strength to protest against the unknown man, couldn't ask why he couldn't have come earlier, and where exactly he was bringing Sakura back. Back to where? To her village, whose members would mourn her? To the place where she was born, which apparently no one knew for certain? To the man's village?—and what was his village, anyway? He hadn't taken a look at his village insigna.

_Why did I jump into the fight?_

But so much _blood_ was on his hands…

_She wouldn't have died if I had stayed put, she'd have been just fine…_

Such a crimson colour that stained them…

_She would have pulled out of it brilliantly if I hadn't tried to help without knowing what his technique could do…_

Would they ever be clean again?

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Hm. I'm quite satisfied with this chapter. Strange, I know, since I'm usually unsatisfied with the way my fighting scenes and emotional scenes unravel (they never seem to be quite the way I want them to be. Maybe it's because I wrote this in one shot). And I expect you all want to murder me, since Sakura died. Well, all I can say is that this story is not finished (certainly not) and that I do intend to write a satisfactory ending (at some point). Still, do tell me what you thought, I'm always happy to hear from you!


	49. Fractured Fairytale

Since I won't have access to a computer this weekend and I doubt many people will spend time to read on Halloween's Day, you get this chapter early. Do enjoy and don't kill me!

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Plic.

-:-

By the time Itachi managed to snap out of his defenseless crouch and look up at his worried teammates instead of the crimson stain on the snow, the sun had long since disappeared over the treetops.

"Please look at us, Itachi-san…"

Sound rushed back to his ears suddenly, bringing sounds of the forest and various anxious voices, but not the one he most wanted to hear.

Once he did look up, however, a series of gasps was heard before a moment of tense silence settled upon the group.

"Itachi-san…Your eyes…"

He did not need them to expand on that thought; that pain he had felt in his whole being, shortly followed by the one in his eyes…that deep, intense feeling of loss as he knew that he might as well have been the one to plunge a kunai in her back…that without him she might have _lived_…

"The Mangekyou, isn't it?" he asked flatly.

-:-

Weightlessness…

-:-

"I want to pay my respects. Before she's cremated and a family shrine is erected in her house."

His teammates looked at one another, nodding. They didn't have the heart to keep the distraught genius from saying a last goodbye to the girl he had loved.

"Alright. Let's go. Her place is not that far."

And so they started to run through the woods once more.

-:-

Ploc.

-:-

Toranosuke looked up as Itachi entered swiftly, looking worried.

"Hey, are you here to pay a personal visit to Sakura-sensei? 'Cause she's not back yet, though it shouldn't be long." He took one look at the bloodied male and frowned. "Well, you should wash your clothes first. Go down to the cave and activate the seals to get hot water."

But the Uchiha didn't move.

"You…You haven't heard? She should have been brought back already," fretted Hana, glancing at her tense and immobile teammate.

Toranosuke frowned, looking at the team with growing suspicion. Something was amiss. And it didn't bode well.

"What do you mean, 'she should have been brought back'? Why would she need to be brought back?" he asked loudly, getting a few passersby to glance at them curiously.

"She died. Not long ago. An ANBU came by and took her body back. We thought he would have brought it here…We were just coming to pay our respects…"

"ANBU? We haven't received a visit from one of those for a few days now…But dead? How could Sakura-sensei be dead?" exclaimed the nuke-nin angrily.

-:-

Floating…

-:-

"Wait. That can't be right. Sensei, dead? Impossible. Besides, her clones are still there! They would have poofed out of existence if she had died!" exclaimed Toranosuke, pointing at one of the clones who happened to be passing by.

"But then…if she's not dead and her body's not here…where could she be?" wondered Hana worriedly.

-:-

Enveloping darkness…

-:-

Word soon got out that the pink-haired medic had been abducted while on the brink of death. All of the Kage soon sent word that none of their ANBU had brought back the injured girl and that she was not in any hospital inside their village. And so the question soon was asked: "Who took her and where did they take her?"

And so, the Hidden Countries became a place of turmoil, each Kage wondering which one had kidnapped their medic, or if it had only been someone parading as an ANBU, in which case the kidnapper could be virtually anybody, from a daimyo to a rogue criminal or even a village Head.

And everyone wanted to find their little medic, the one who had had so strange an idea as neutrality. Without her, many of their ninja could have died or become crippled. And if her medical village—or the beginnings of it—couldn't survive her…

"She must be found! Gather any intelligence you can find on her whereabouts!"

-:-

All-encompassing darkness…

-:-

"What happens now?" asked Tohru, running a hand through his blonde hair.

"This is ojou-sama's home," replied Satoshi, waving a hand to encompass the whole building. "I, for one, swore loyalty to her and I will wait for her here when she comes back. As long as people are willing to uphold her ideals, I will continue to run this hospital."

The blonde nodded, taking a sip of his cup of tea.

"I, too, will stay here. It is only right that as her first apprentice, I do so."

This time, the old samurai nodded, adding that he had already responded to every Kage personally to tell them he did not hold them responsible for the kidnapping of the child medic.

"Every hour, I look for her clones, to see if they have disappeared, and I pray that the next time I look, they are still there, for it will mean sensei is not dead yet," sighed Tohru sadly.

-:-

Empty void…

-:-

"The Uchiha Clan will not take this kidnapping lightly! Whoever took her made enemies of us! And we shall not rest until we find what happened to my future daughter-in-law!" exclaimed Fugaku.

"Now, now, don't be too hasty," said Danzo calmly. "We don't even know who took her. For all we know, it could be a plot of hers to disappear, if she couldn't stand her role or upholding her naïve neutrality ideals any longer."

"The Uchiha Clan is indebted to her," replied Fugaku hotly. "And if you think she would have been so feeble as to crumble under pressure, you are quite misinformed. I have it on good authority that Sakura-sensei was feeling well and was quite content with the way things were going. She couldn't have disappeared!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. All of this was giving him a headache. A Council was never fun to convene, but this one made him particularly tired of everything.

"Enough," he said, demoralized. "Stop getting at each other's throat. This is counterproductive."

The two men stopped talking, but their glares only intensified.

"For now, before this situation degenerates and the other Kage use it as an excuse to start a war, we have to do our best to find any clue we can. Uchiha-sama, your eldest son saw the scene, didn't he? Send him to Yamanaka Inoichi-sama, so that he may see his memories."

And with that, the meeting was adjourned.

-:-

Cocooned in darkness…

-:-

Inoichi didn't flinch at the steady gaze fixated on him, but only barely. And he really didn't like that this strong gaze came from one as young as the Uchiha heir.

"I am ready, Yamanaka-san," said the child. "Please proceed whenever you feel comfortable."

And having someone actually enthusiastic about having someone viewing their memories was…unsettling. At best.

"Alright. Here I come."

And then he was in the boy's head, viewing memories much clearer than normal ones due to the sharingan.

The scene was painful to watch, and seeing it a few more times didn't really help him hold in his emotions, but it allowed him to take notice of details he wouldn't otherwise have seen. Such as a particularly important one.

"Morino-san, that ANBU didn't have any identification. No hitai-ate, nothing. Nothing to indicate which village he belonged to."

"So he either paraded as an ANBU or his Kage planned this quite well and didn't want there to be any chance for people to find out which village he's from," murmured Ibiki pensively.

"Right," agreed the blonde. "Either way, that doesn't bode well."

A conspiracy? That was not going to make the Hokage happy…

-:-

Cocooned so tightly it seemed impossible to move…

-:-

"Morino-san, I wish to become an ANBU."

Ibiki raised an eyebrow, surprised at the firm tone of the Uchiha heir who was looking at him steadily.

"…Why so suddenly?" he asked after a moment, scrutinizing the boy suspiciously—and yet, despite his intimidating appearance and attitude, the child didn't look fazed in the slightest.

"If sensei's kidnapper is an ANBU, I have more chances of encountering him if I am myself an ANBU. My skills are superior to those of all the chuunin I know and now that I have the Mangekyou sharingan, I am even more lethal than before. Please let me take the tests."

The scarred man crossed his arms over his chest and looked closely at the boy, looking for any sign of uncertainty, fear, or anything that could indicate that he was liable to change his opinion in the future—and found nothing.

"She means that much to you?" he asked at length.

"She does."

Flat, and to the point.

"Alright. If you pass your next chuunin test, I'll give you an opportunity to try for the ANBU division."

_That's a few months away still…A few months to train…It's too long…She has to last until I find her!_

-:-

That darkness…it didn't feel normal…

-:-

_Sakura-sensei abducted by unknown man disguised as an ANBU. Find any lead you can on her whereabouts._

The message replayed over and over in his mind.

"Okyaku-san, your lip is bleeding."

The calm voice shook him out of his reverie and with a start, he noticed that the waitress was right. He'd bitten his lip so hard blood was dribbling on his chin. With a strained smile in thanks directed at the retreating woman, he wiped it clean with his hand and stared at the crimson stain for a long moment, seeing in its stead that of the girl he had taken in as his own.

He clenched his hand, glaring at the red liquid seeping through his fingers.

That girl…She was of the kind of people you expected to live forever. To have such a burning light be snuffed so early…

He put a handful of coins on the table to pay for the meal he hadn't eaten and took the scroll he had been contemplating for the past hour and a half.

"Your legacy…Will that be everything that remains of you, Sakura-chan?" he whispered to the winds.

-:-

Really, to be unable to move…

-:-

"Jiraiya-sama. Why the sudden visit?" asked Tohru, leading the Sannin to Sakura's room as he had requested.

"A while ago, Sakura-chan gave me a certain specific scroll for safekeeping. It contains her wishes for this village and gives quite an insight into her way of life. It is only appropriate that I give it to Akawa-san, as he is the one who runs this place now that she has disappeared, so that he can implement the various ideas contained in this scroll," replied the old man.

The two men entered the almost sacred room; at their entrance, the samurai looked up from his paperwork, looking more tired and older than ever before.

"Ah, Jiraiya-sama. What can I do for you?" he asked, getting up to shake the man's hand.

"This," answered Jiraiya, putting the scroll reverently on the desk Satoshi was using, "contains Sakura-chan's desires for this place. It states everything that has to be done. In details."

Satoshi's long fingers brushed against the scroll slowly as he lost himself in thoughts known to him only.

"Hm…I wonder if it evokes how to open ojou-sama's cabinet…" he murmured at length.

"Nothing in there alludes to a cabinet," replied Jiraiya. "But what is that cabinet?"

Satoshi gestured to the cabinet at the side of the room as he explained, "In the cave, there is a cabinet like this one, but it is sealed. Ojou-sama always said that it would open when it was time, but no more. I only know that she spent whole nights to write scrolls. Her light steps echoed in the corridors when she went down to the cave. The medics speculate that they contain medical secrets, techniques she invented, or even data about each patient, but no one can be sure, as she has never opened this cabinet in front of any of us."

Jiraiya's eyes lit in understanding.

"So that's why she asked me those seals…" he murmured pensively. "A long time ago, she asked me to design a seal that would allow only her to open a specific container, which at the time I thought to be a scroll. I designed it so that only she would be able to open it, unless she were dead. Maybe that's why you can't open the cabinet. And if it is, I'm afraid I can't open it, for that seal was protected by others, too. As I said, I designed it to make sure whatever it was was well protected."

What could possibly be hidden in that cabinet, written on those scrolls?

-:-

Why was it impossible to move?

-:-

Kisame clenched his teeth so hard they hurt.

Who had _dared_ to take his chibi-sensei? She was his, and he did not take well to someone abducting her. Especially since he had not done it himself. If he was decent enough to only observe her attempts at normalcy, then whoever had taken her certainly had _no fucking right_ to kidnap her.

When he found the bastard…he would wish he had never laid eyes on the pinkette…oh yes…He wouldn't curb his sadistic nature and let his bloodlust take over him until he was positively bathing in the man's blood. And then some more.

But first he was going to interrogate the immortal who had tried to sacrifice her to his pagan god.

And he was going to enjoy putting him through hell.

After all, immortality had the nasty side-effect that _you couldn't die._

-:-

Unnatural…unnatural…you have to free yourself! You have to live!

And then eyelids snapped open blindly in the darkness, a chest moved up reflexively as it inhaled air in great gasping movements.

And an observation was made with blinding clarity.

_I'm alive._

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Okyaku: customer

Hope you liked this chapter! It feels fragmented and rushed for a very good reason: that how I wanted it to come across!

Haha. Anyway, the next chapter will expand a bit more on that, and then we may see Sakura. Maybe. If I decide to be nice and not wait until the chapter after that.


	50. Mindplay

Another chapter, written much in the same style as the last one. And this time the mystery starts to unravel somewhat. Can you believe this is the 50th chapter? When I started this story, I never thought that I would get this far. And don't worry, I don't intend to abandon this story (seems some people thought so when I made Sakura "die"). I'm having way too much fun writing this.

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Suspended into darkness, she didn't feel anything. Until she did.

And _damn_ did that hurt. Her whole body felt like an open wound.

A hiss escaped her cracked lips, but then her mouth seemed to close in on itself and she became acutely aware that her whole mouth felt pasty and her throat was so dry that it hurt to breathe.

_Where am I? And how did I survive?_

-:-

"Ne, aniki…otou-san is making scary faces again…"

Itachi didn't answer, concentrating intently on his kata. He had to get better, no matter what it took.

Used to his brother's silent nature, Sasuke, twirling a blade of grass in his fingers, continued, undeterred, "Can't you write to Sakura-nee-chan to ask her to come? I miss her and when she was here, she always made otou-san calmer…"

It took all Itachi had not to flinch at the naïve words. No one had told Sasuke that his beloved nee-chan had disappeared and had quite possibly died. It would have been unnecessarily cruel. And though the younger boy didn't know it, Sakura's disappearance was once of the things that made their father look so grim recently.

"She's been…very busy recently," replied Itachi, picking up the pace. His movements became faster and more fluid, determination shining through his eyes.

"Eeeh? Then when's she going to come, then?" asked the upset boy.

"When she can, otouto. When she can."

-:-

Once the wave of pain abated somewhat—or she could have simply adjusted to it—she tried to move. And found she couldn't. It wasn't solely that she felt lethargic, that her head was pounding and that her limbs didn't seem to want to respond.

"What the—"

Somewhere to her left, a door rattled—she supposed it was a door, though she couldn't be sure—and someone entered the room she was in. She couldn't sense wind, sunshine or rain, and it smelled damp. _And_ it was cold. But those were just indications that she got from her skin, mostly. What the hell was messing with her sensory jutsu? Why couldn't she sense anything?

"And so you are awake."

That voice. She recognized it. That cold, sardonic voice.

A single hiss fell from her lips angrily.

"Danzo-san…"

-:-

Hidan cursed. His head had been taken, after a long while, by an animal, and he was already missing an ear, dammit! Why was that particular animal not frightened by his foul mouth?

"You fuckin' animal! Get your fuckin' teeth off of me!" he yelled furiously.

The beast was suddenly flung far from him, eliciting a bright, sadistic smile as it yelped upon contact with a tree. But his smile disappeared as feet appeared in front of his eyes and his head was hoisted up by his hair. Roughly, might he add.

He found himself looking at a most unusual face—come on, the man was _blue_! How much stranger could you get? He even had gills!

"Hello," said the overgrown fish with a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Good thing I found you before your head was deprived of a tongue. You and I have a lot to talk about."

"What do we have to talk about?" inquired the Jashinist suspiciously.

"Let's start with a certain acquaintance of mine. I believe you know her. Blind, pink-haired, ten-ish? The little one who beheaded you?"

"Oh shi—"

Kisame's eyes darkened in anger.

"Trust me, this is one time you're gonna regret your immortality," growled the shark man before getting up and taking the head with him.

-:-

"If I were you, I wouldn't take that tone. After all, without me, you'd be dead at the moment."

She snorted loudly. "Yeah, I was kinda wondering about that. But I don't think you would have saved me without a good reason. So what is it?"

The old man approached her, and looked at her intently, though she could not see him back.

"So your mind didn't suffer too much. Well…you _are_ right. I do want something from you. Information. I want to know what exactly it is that you have that hangs over my head and where you've hidden that information."

Her head, which she'd barely managed to get a few inches up her mat, fell back on it tiredly as a chuckle escaped her lips.

"Haaa…So _that_'s why."

She smirked to herself, chuckling until she had to cough wetly.

"I have some people here who are more than adept at torture, _sensei_," sneered the Elder. "I suggest you tell me what I wish to know before I let them do what they do best. I spent much energy on making sure you stayed alive—after all, who knows what kind of jutsu you could have placed that would activate upon your death? And if one of those revealed my secret…"

"Isn't that more like your people who did it? You crazy old coot," she wheezed with difficulty.

He gripped her shoulder, digging his fingers in the injured flesh, and hissed menacingly, approaching his face to hers as she gasped in pain, "Don't. Tempt me."

"I wouldn't dare," she replied with a bloody smirk.

"We'll see if you sass as much once my men have their way with you. The state you'll be in afterward all depends on how quickly you talk."

His footsteps indicated he went back to the door, at which point someone else entered.

"Start by breaking every bone in her hands. She may have chakra suppressors on, but she's very stubborn and I don't want to take any chance. And she's already proven she could fight with damaged hands. I want her to know for sure she can't escape."

"Hai, Danzo-sama."

And so she prepared to get into a world of pain.

-:-

Kakashi sighed, tempted to take a page out of the Nara Clan's book and say that it was troublesome. Next to him, Inuzuka Hana didn't fare any better. And she looked ready to growl in annoyance.

"Back when she was abducted, I didn't think of going after the man," repeated Hana for the umpteenth time—really, how many times had she had to repeat that? "My team and I went to her home, found she was not there, then wondered where she could have been taken. Doubts emerged in Uchiha Itachi's mind and we went back to the clearing where she was taken down. I tried to track the man down, but after a few miles, all traces of his existence—or Sakura-sensei's—disappeared."

"Hokage-sama, when I went there, I couldn't find any trace either," concurred Kakashi. "My nin-dogs said it was as though they just vanished into thin air."

"So we're no closer to knowing who snatched her than before…" murmured the Sandaime.

-:-

"You do cling to life. Are you still conscious?"

Sakura barely managed to twitch, blood dribbling down her chin.

"So you are. Have you changed your mind?"

A warbled groan escaped her throat, but by the way she averted her head away from him, he took that as a no.

"Since your kidnapping, the world has been in turmoil. It should abate before long, once people realize they can't find you. Did you know the youngest son of the Kazekage went berserk once he learned of your disappearance? I actually thought there would be more bloodshed, but it seems he's concentrated on finding you, so less people were hurt. What a shame. If only he could have made a dent in Suna's ninja forces…"

_So he restrained himself, huh? How surprising…Never thought he would put his effort in finding me…_

A wry smile appeared on her face.

_Heh…_

-:-

Nara Shikaku contemplated his shoji set and sighed.

"How troublesome…"

His son, looking at the clouds next to him, sighed in turn, understanding his feelings.

Despite his numerous theories, which he'd shared with the Hokage, it seemed people were no closer no finding the whereabouts of the child medic. And it irked him.

Especially when he wanted to play a good game of shoji with the girl.

_My intellect will not lose to that of her kidnappers._

-:-

"The fact that your information hasn't come to light yet makes me think that it will stay hidden until you die. So as long as you survive, my secrets remain safe."

Sakura didn't answer.

"Since you've managed to keep your mouth shut despite everything my people have done to you, it appears you are of those people who take their secrets to their grave. So I won't lose any more time and energy to make you spill your secrets."

It took some time for Sakura's brain to process the words, but then she wondered exactly what the old bastard could possibly have in mind for her now.

"So instead, I will make you work for me."

_Eh?_

-:-

The room felt dark and the air felt heavy with worry. Across from each other, Sakura and Inner Sakura, sitting Indian style, frowned at each other.

"Our future is bleak," said Inner.

"Yeah," agreed Sakura. "Danzo plans to erase our memories so that he can make a ROOT member out of us."

"That crazy old coot…" growled Inner angrily.

"Without any way to use our chakra and the state we are in, we can't escape. We couldn't even move, let alone attempt to escape."

"Damn him," said Inner, crossing her arms across her chest as she nodded resolutely.

"But we can see this as a chance. Once he erases all that made us "us", he will let us heal and will take off those chakra suppressors."

"Maybe. Though I doubt he will try to transplant new eyes into our head and change our hair colour that soon in order to make us look tremendously different."

Sakura nodded. She knew Danzo would alter her appearance so that she didn't look anything like herself, but he would wait until he was certain any trace of her personality was erased completely.

"Let's do it, then," she said resolutely.

Across from her, Inner Sakura nodded, a grim look on her face.

"Let's. Even though we don't know whether that will work or not."

"Not like we have a choice."

"Not like we have a choice. If we want to ever see our loved ones again."

-:-

And so it was that Sakura let Inner seal her in her mind, hoping Inner would manage to resist any attempt at erasing her and act like a blank slate. If Inner disappeared…she would stay sealed in the corner of her mind that was most protected forever. And Danzo would get his emotionless doll.

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Alright. A note to explain a few things. Here is the theory on which I based Sakura's defense: a person who has amnesia can still function, only this person would have to get a complete new set of memories starting from the point when they got erased. So this person becomes very vulnerable to any mind control and outside influence. To prevent herself from being totally vulnerable, she allowed Inner to seal her instead of allowing Danzo to do it or erase her, leaving Inner in charge of her body. As a double personality, Inner can't disappear unless Sakura does, as she is dependent on the latter. So she can guard Sakura's mind and choose to show herself or not, as the case may be. I hope this clears things up.


	51. Blood and Family

Thank you for all your nice reviews! They made me feel all nice and fuzzy inside! I do so love hearing from you guys. And wow, this story got more than 2000 rviews! You guys are awesome! I hope you like this new chapter that I post early to celebrate! (Oh yes, things are coming along quite nicely, and just about to get more complicated…hehehe)

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Naruto was no fool despite his happy-go-lucky persona. Getting to read people's thoughts on their face and body language had become something of a second nature to him. For a pariah like him, that was almost a necessity. After all, if he could spot dangerous thoughts on people's minds from afar, he could more easily escape. It had saved him many a beating in the past. And now that particular skill came in handy.

For the last few months, he had noticed a lingering tension in many of the shinobi who jumped from roof to roof daily. And it was not the only thing worrying him. From time to time, he sent letters to his beloved nee-chan, but recently, she hadn't responded to any of them. Was she angry at him? Was it because he couldn't write well? That hadn't seemed to bother her all that much before; she had always answered his letters quickly before.

Since the movements of the ninja didn't really concern him, he merely noted their tension as a third party. But as for the matter of Sakura's avoidance of him…

_Time for a visit to jiji!_

-:-

Sarutobi Hiruzen was an old man. And nowadays, he felt older than ever. The Council was on his back and being a pain as always—though the 'pain in the ass' bit seemed to have gone up a notch or two—and the Elders firmly disapproved his decision to keep spies on the lookout for any news of Sakura's whereabouts. Which in turn brought tension from the ninja Clans who insisted he kept his men on the lookout—and probably did some research on their own anyway. And then came the civilian part of the council, which was divided on the subject. Some thought her village would survive without her anyway, so there wasn't a need to look for her so actively after so many months; others thought that her loss would have too much impact and that her knowledge should be shared instead of lost seemingly forever.

All in all, his ears were ringing with the amount of shouting that was done nowadays. And Sakura was still no closer to being found than months ago, when she had first disappeared.

And then his worries increased as he came back to his office to find a blonde knucklehead troublemaker waiting for him in his chair.

_Oh boy…_

"Naruto-kun, what are you doing here?" he asked with a smile that felt fake even to him.

"Jiji! Why is it that Sakura-nee-chan is ignoring me? I know you know, since you know everything!" exclaimed the child loudly, pointing an accusing finger at him.

_Of course._

"Naruto-kun…Your nee-chan is quite busy nowadays with the creation of her medical village. Maybe she was too busy to answer your letters," he said, trying his best not to break the poor boy's heart with bad news of the first person to actually care about him except for himself.

"I know she is! But that's not it!" replied the boy angrily, eyes flashing. "She _always_ answered before! Jiji, did I do something bad? Is she angry at me?"

The vulnerability in those clear blue eyes was painful to watch.

"Don't worry, Naruto-kun. She would never hate you. Trust in her, ne?" he said, putting a paternal hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Yeah…"

He felt bad lying to the dejected boy, but that was better than telling him the truth. He didn't need to be burdened with it.

"Come on, I'll treat you to a meal at Ichiraku's."

-:-

"This smell…"

Hana's soft murmur made her teammates stop and look at her curiously.

"What smell?"

"Well…I don't know…I mean, it smells a lot like Sakura-sensei, but at the same time, it's different."

"Different? How?"

"I don't know, just…different."

They all looked at her. How could a smell so similar to her but at the same time different appear in Konoha?

"Well, let's go see!"

They followed Hana as she sniffed at the trail and took off rapidly. She zigzagged through the streets swiftly, intent on nothing more but the smell. Storefronts became blurs, people disappeared, and only that scent remained.

Why had she never noticed it before? She couldn't say. Maybe it was that she was so used to ignoring scents unless she was on missions that she had never took this one into account. Or maybe it had not existed before. She really couldn't say, and it drove her mad.

And then the scent became much stronger and she stopped abruptly, eyes wide. Her gaze remained trained on a long expanse of pink hair; she didn't dare breathe in case she broke the moment.

But then the child turned around, and her wide green eyes were expressive, and she was dressed in a red Chinese dress with a white circle on top, and she was too young to be the person she was looking for. Her hopes fell to the bottom of her stomach heavily. That child was not Sakura-sensei, no matter how much she looked like her.

"Sorry," she uttered despondently. "She smelled so much like her…for a moment, I…"

Itachi shook his head.

"Iie…Even I, for a moment…"

But the illusion was broken, and with it, their moral sank to a low.

In the playground, the pastel-haired child continued to play, alone, on the swings.

"I know that girl," murmured Itachi. "She has a crush on my younger brother. I believe her name is Haruno Sakura."

"With hair like that, that name doesn't surprise me," noted Shisui.

"Hn. A similar name…similar appearance…similar smell and chakra signature…"

"Do you think they may be related, oh dear cousin?" asked Shisui, glancing at the younger Uchiha.

"It may be possible. We don't know anything about Sakura-sensei's mother, so she may well have been related to Haruno Sakura-san's family. Maybe they are distant cousins."

"This is worth investigating."

-:-

Apparently, Haruno Sakura's mother and father didn't know if they had distant family, bastard siblings or otherwise. Which didn't mean it wasn't possible that Sakura-sensei's mother was related to either of them, but it was hard to prove.

And since the medic had never told anyone where she originally was from—and seeing as Jiraiya travelled around a lot and went after anyone who could call herself female—she could be from anywhere. Presumably, her mother was dead, so it would be nearly impossible to find her. Thus, they didn't know in which part of the world she could reappear if she went back to her birthplace or her mother's grave.

"Another dead-end," murmured Sarutobi Hiruzen tiredly.

"Hokage-sama, if I may," said Itachi, "I may have an idea. Hana-san said that Haruno Sakura-san's chakra and smell are almost identical to sensei's. Maybe she could open sensei's cabinet, especially if they share the same bloodline."

The Sandaime looked shrewdly at the Uchiha heir over steepled fingers. There was a definite possibility that the medic and Haruno Sakura were sisters, especially if the older girl was a bastard child. It was quite possible that the younger girl's mother had had an affair and had abandoned her baby. In that case, it was possible that Jiraiya wasn't really her father, even if both of them thought he was. Or it could have been Haruno's father who had an extramarital affair. In both cases, it would make it absolutely impossible for the Sannin to open the cabinet if, on the odd chance that a close family member could open it, he tried to do it.

"Alright. Escort her to Sakura-sensei's home and make her try to open the cabinet. It is worth a try."

Things became quite complicated whenever the child medic was concerned, it seemed.

-:-

Satoshi looked at the team bemusedly. In the last year, he had had virtually no news of his ojou-sama, and while he had managed to run the hospital, her loss _had_ been felt. Sure, she had left clones behind, but they were not the same as the real thing, and without Sakura, the hospital just didn't feel the same, despite thriving and expanding according to the plans she had entrusted to Jiraiya.

And now…

"Why exactly have you brought this child here?" he asked, looking the girl over. "She looks a lot like ojou-sama, but I hope you don't want her to pose as my young mistress."

"That wasn't our intention," replied Itachi. "We thought, however, that she may have a chance if she tried to open the cabinet."

The speculative gleam in Satoshi's eyes intensified; this time, he looked at the clueless child more intently.

"Well," he sighed at last, "though I doubt she will succeed, why not?" He got up and, with an encompassing gesture, said calmly, "Shall we?"

The trek to the cave was made in relative silence, except from the questions from the young Sakura who still now had no idea what they were expecting her to do.

They wandered in, lit some torches along the way to see more clearly despite the glowing moss, and ended up crowding around the mysterious cabinet.

"Please do try," said Satoshi to the curious girl.

"Eh? But…"

As soon as she objected timidly and trailed off uncertainly, unknowing of exactly what they expected of her, twin streaks of pink appeared in front of the group, and they found themselves facing two clones of the older Sakura.

"Don't."

"There is a distinct possibility that you might be able to open this cabinet," said the second clone just as firmly as the first, crossing her arms across her chest.

"However, doing this would put everyone at great danger and quite possibly put Boss in an even more considerable danger."

"Or sign her death warrant."

"Or that."

After a long moment of silence from all parties, Shisui frowned and growled, "You know what's in there?"

"Of course," agreed the first clone, face serious.

"But it's too dangerous to let anyone know."

"Yet."

"Yet," agreed the other with a nod.

"Why do you say this could kill sensei?" asked Itachi, intrigued.

"All information is not good to know at one point in time," replied the second clone, looking quite certain of the veracity of her words.

"And some of the things in there can most definitely get Boss killed."

"If she means anything to you, don't open the cabinet."

"Please believe us, that would be a bad idea."

"And you know that as clones, we wouldn't do anything that goes against her wishes or that could put her in danger. After all, if she dies, we disappear too."

And so it was that no one opened the cabinet. It was reluctantly that everyone left it sealed, but eventually, all trailed out of the cave, and the cabinet kept its secrets.

-:-

"Why is her condition deteriorating? We stopped the torture after months, and even back then, she wasn't in so bad a shape as now!" exclaimed the old man in frustration.

"We don't know, Danzo-sama. We're doing everything we can to keep her alive," replied the other man calmly.

"Do better. That girl is one I cannot afford to let die."

"Hai, Danzo-sama."

The words came to the pink-haired child muffled, as though she had cotton stuck in her ears. They didn't make much sense to her, but she knew they were talking about her. Who else could they have been talking about? And apparently, she was dying. Was that why she felt so much pain everywhere in her body, why she felt sluggish even now?

Well, if she was dying…She couldn't do much about that, now could she?

After all, she didn't even know how to heal herself, if that was at all possible.

She just felt…empty.

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Things are not running as smoothly as Danzo expected, and since Sakura can't remember anything…Trouble is on the horizon, people!

I await your reviews!

A quick note: Inner rules over the sanctity of Sakura's mind, but she won't be controlling her body unless something drastic happens so that she isn't found out. It's more like she's passively sleeping until an alarm goes off.


	52. Taking Cherry Blossoms

This arc will soon end, I promise, and I swear the next chapter will satisfy everyone! For now, thanks to all of you reviewers, I always like to hear from you!

If you want to be in the right mindset when you read this, I suggest you listen to AFI's Prelude 12/21. Enjoy!

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Two voices filtering through cotton-filled ears in a hazy world.

"Tell me you have managed to stabilize her."

"We have, Danzo-sama."

"Good. This girl _has_ to stay alive."

Footsteps leaving hurriedly.

-:-

People entered her room. She knew because she heard their footsteps. Her head automatically turned in that direction tiredly. Soon enough, the door closed, leaving whoever had entered stranded with her.

"Hello," she called out slowly, "what are you doing here?"

Whoever had entered came closer to her bed; she didn't recognize the footsteps, thus didn't know who it was nor what that person could want from her.

"They're cleaning my room," replied a young but nonetheless clearly male voice.

"Ah…" she replied dizzily.

"You're going to die soon, aren't you?" asked the boy. "That's why you're so feeble and why they left me in here."

"Hm…maybe you'll get my room," she replied tiredly. She had long since accepted that she would die. The frequent relapses made sure of that. The point had been driven home quite effectively.

"Maybe," he agreed, looming over her. "What's with the bandages?"

"I'm getting new eyes. But they hurt. Are eyes supposed to hurt? I wouldn't know, I never had any…"

She heard a swish of clothes, as though he was shrugging, though she couldn't be sure, and he answered that his didn't. Then they remained quiet, as she was too feeble to talk and he apparently didn't feel like speaking anyway. She drifted off to sleep—nowadays, she always felt so drained of energy that she never stayed awake for long.

-:-

Kisame was brooding. Life was dull nowadays. Before, he'd get to see the pinkette once in a while, and it never failed to lift his spirits, but now…She had disappeared more than a year ago, and still the loss felt as raw as the first day.

That didn't keep him from accomplishing his missions efficiently, but it did put a damper on his mood.

He found himself moody and irascible, which lead him to being more violent than usual.

And when his irritation rose to a higher level than he could manage, he went to the place where he had left Hidan's beheaded body. It never failed to bring him a small measure of peace.

While the Jashinist hadn't been the one to kidnap Sakura, he _had_ been the catalyst that had allowed the kidnapper to take her. That was guilt enough in his book.

She was gone, and the mere thought was enough at times to very nearly drive him insane.

On his way to the Jashinist, he noticed someone tailing him. What was strange wasn't the fact that he was tailed, for to a nuke-nin, that was bound to happen occasionally, but rather the fact that his tail wasn't bothering to hide their chakra signature at all. That alone made him curious. It was as though the person wanted him to know he was being tailed.

He conveniently stopped in the middle of a clearing and waited for his tail to show up.

Soon enough, another ninja ran out of the trees and stopped some distance away, allowing him to recognize the man easily.

"Well, well. If it isn't the Toad Sage himself. What do you want?"

Looking unusually grave, the man frowned, answering in a hard voice, "I've been looking for you for a while, Hoshigaki-san. I'll get straight to the point. My Sakura-chan has disappeared over a year ago, yet no ransom was demanded and since her clones haven't disappeared, she has to still be alive. Was your group the one that took her?"

He snorted, half angry and half amused.

"I would have known if we had been. I wondered the same myself, but I checked, just in case my leader decided to take her without my knowledge. We don't have her."

The Sannin sighed sadly.

"I figured so, but…I had to make sure. Have you found anything, with your contacts in the underworld?"

"No more than you apparently have."

There was nothing more to be said. With a last glare at each other and a "I still don't like you" and "Likewise", they each left their own way, figuring if they fought each other now, they would lose more than they would gain. A tentative partnership was better than none at all.

Why did all leads end up being dead ends?

-:-

"What's that noise?"

The strange noise she had been hearing ever since she had woken up stopped for a moment before continuing, but at least her temporary roommate answered her question.

"My brush."

_A brush?_

"What can you possibly be painting in here?" she asked incredulously, though her voice was much more feeble than she would have liked.

"You," he answered straight and to the point.

"What do I look like?" she wondered curiously.

"Like a corpse."

"Hah!" she snorted amusedly. "That's hardly flattering, though I…suppose it must be true."

They lapsed into silence once more.

"Will you remember me after I'm gone?" she asked at length.

"I remember every last one of my drawings."

"Good…"

Her breaths grew shallower.

-:-

"Her state was supposed to be stabilized. Why is she getting worse?"

"We don't know, Danzo-sama. There is nothing we can do."

"To bring in an outside medic would be dangerous…but one's memories can always be erased…"

Her hearing was getting worse—as was, apparently, the rest of her body.

She missed her temporary roommate. When he was there, at least his silent companionship made her feel less alone. But he had to train, and she was frequently sleeping; there was something about him that felt, if not familiar, at least reassuring. She liked it when he was there.

-:-

"This is your chance to prove that you have learned _something_ from your father, Yakushi-san. Your mission is to heal this female."

The male looked at the feverish girl with scrutinizing eyes, his glasses glinting sharply in the artificial lighting of the room. Despite her obvious bad state, he recognized her—the bandages around her eyes were clue enough. He wisely kept from commenting and nodded, kneeling next to the ailing girl.

-:-

There was something strange about that new person. She didn't quite know why, but _something_ didn't sit well with her about that male. The air around him seemed cold, somehow, and it gave her goosebumps. She much preferred her temporary roommate.

She was too weak to protest, however, and stayed immobile as he put his hands on her torso and something not quite warm seemed to enter her body.

She frowned in displeasure, but her eyes hurt more than usual when her face scrunched up, and she tried to avoid making such faces.

They were left alone, and that thought didn't exactly comfort her.

"Well…I am going to get you out of here. I know someone who wants to meet you. To think you were here…"

Get out? Where? What for? Why would she want to get out of here? They tried to heal her, even though they knew she was dying. That meant they were nice, right? They cared about her.

Yet something at the back of her mind told her that wasn't quite true. And as she thought such, her world came to a halt in an instant.

-:-

Inner Sakura shook her head, crossing her arms as she plopped in front of the warded door behind which Sakura had been sealed.

Staying put had never been her forte, and to be frank, to pretend that she didn't exist and keep her existence a secret was a pain in the ass. Still, more than ripping Danzo a new one, she wanted to live, not solely survive, and she knew that Kabuto was her best bet, despite how dangerous the situation could turn. This may very well be the opportunity she had been waiting for.

"Wait a bit, wait a bit, and then we may be free…If all goes well…"

She pushed away from the wall, stretched her arms above her head and nodded to herself.

"Well, time to surreptitiously implant some ideas into the empty shell I'm inhabiting," she said to herself.

-:-

When she came to, she instantly noticed something was different. The air was…danker, somehow. It felt more oppressive, but she didn't know why. Still, her mind cried at her that something wasn't exactly right.

Frowning, she wondered what it was.

After assessing her surroundings, she realized that the by now familiar sound of brush sweeping across paper was nowhere to be heard. Had her temporary companion been transferred to another room?

A door opened, but the metallic creak and the fact that she barely felt a breeze told her that it was probably a cell door rather than a normal one like she had in her old room.

She didn't recognize the footsteps, either, but as they stopped next to her cot, she turned her head in the direction of her visitor. To her left, as it was, which further confirmed that she wasn't in the same room as before, as in her old room, her visitors had approached from her right.

"Well, well, now that you're in my possession, we're going to have much fun together. At least, _I _will."

As she wondered what the man with the sibilant voice meant, he continued, "You have much potential. And I've got great plans for you."

She wondered what she could possibly mean to him, but before she could say anything, he knocked her unconscious.

-:-

Something was not right. After visiting the medical village, the Konoha ninja had gotten into a fight; despite the high level of their adversaries, it seemed their only goal was to get the young Haruno, for as soon as they managed to grab her, they took off with the screaming girl in tow, leaving behind tired and bleeding shinobi who could only rage at the circumstances.

"Attacking at night, when they were sure most of us would be sleeping, just to get the element of surprise…"

"We must have gotten close to something," agreed Itachi, eyes narrowing in anger.

"Think she was taken by the same people who took Sakura-sensei?" asked Shisui, looking cautiously at his fuming cousin.

"Undoubtedly. Something must have happened, or else she would have been taken long before now—unless they were waiting for her to get out of Konoha. I think this proves that the two Sakura are related."

"Aa…They may very well be sisters…but why would someone kidnap the younger Sakura?"

Indeed, why would one capture a child civilian?

-:-

Something was strangling her, something was choking the life out of her, but there were no hands around her neck, no knee on her chest, and the feeling brought strange helplessness. She came to, gasping for air, and cried out loudly. She clawed at her chest, panting and huffing, and barely noticed someone throwing themselves away from her bedside and landing sharply on the floor over the rush in her ears.

Her world was compressing around her, her head hurt like crazy and she had trouble even thinking. What was going on?

Something was unsettling her, and unfounded panic gripped her, unbidden. She had to get away. She had to get far way. She didn't know where, she didn't know how, but she couldn't stay there. She would die if she did—that she knew for sure, though she didn't know how she was so certain of that.

"Are you…alright?" asked a young voice, sounding unsure.

And then something wormed from the back of her mind, something that she hadn't even suspected was there, and her mind suddenly wasn't so hollow anymore, but it erupted in a fare of pain that left her gasping.

"This isn't right…"

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Wow, what a crappy chapter. Necessary, but crappy. I didn't manage to write this to my satisfaction, but at least I worked on this today, so it isn't as bad as it was yesterday. I promise the next chapter will be much, much better, with plenty of action and drama to make everyone happy.


	53. Escape

I've been told that it doesn't show that more than a year has passed, to which I have to answer: it is normal. The last few chapters mostly focused on either incidents in the secondary characters' lives or "Empty Sakura"'s perception of things going on around her—and she still doesn't know how much time has passed. Still, this baby here…I'm quite proud of it. Enjoy this extra long chapter!

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The younger female tried to approach the older, sick one, but the latter extended a hand out in clear warning not to come any closer.

"Stay away!" she exclaimed harshly to the stunned civilian who felt tears threaten to roll down her cheeks.

"S-sorry," she murmured, hugging herself. She felt so alone and terrified, and now her roommate had proved to be cold and distant. She didn't know what was going to happen to her, but her imagination ran wild, coming up with scenario upon scenario, each one more horrible than the precedent.

"Iie, I…Just…Just don't touch me directly. Come closer if you must, speak to me if you want, but never touch me."

Nodding, the younger girl crawled closer to the other's cot and sat down with her back to it, hugging her knees to her chest.

-:-

Inner Sakura took control of the body, knowing that when she receded, she would not be remembered by the empty shell unless she unsealed Sakura from where she was protected in a corner of her mind. It would be just like an episode in a psychotic person. The main personality wouldn't remember the time when the double personality took over.

She wanted to tell the young Sakura everything, to take her into her arms to reassure her, but she couldn't. If she told her anything, there was a very distinct possibility that Orochimaru got a word of it—and he would begin to suspect her, which would put an end to any and all escape attempts on her part. And if she touched her, she was certain that she would die. Proximity was already putting a strain on her, making it difficult to breathe and think. Her migraine would not disappear until the child did, that much she knew. After all, she had had a run in with the girl once before, and at her touch, her heart had stopped beating. That wasn't something she could afford in this place.

And now her escape plan was close to impossible. Not only did she still have chakra suppressors on, but she now had her younger self present with her.

No matter what, she had to get the girl out.

-:-

It didn't take long for Inner Sakura to think up a plan. Just because _she_ couldn't use chakra didn't mean the younger Sakura couldn't.

"You. Do you know how to use chakra?" she asked the younger girl.

Of course, the girl didn't. And so she said. Inner Sakura listened for a while—her ears still felt cottony, but she was confident that she could hear better than her younger self did at present. Then, satisfied that no one was near or coming, she explained to the young child how to sense her chakra.

"Listen well, and remember: this could save your life."

-:-

Reaching in her to access that elusive pool of strength was hard, but the young child knew this was of the utmost importance. Her only ally in this place, her cellmate, had made sure she understood that. And judging by the state the older girl was in, she had better manage to use her chakra soon or she would end up being just as feeble as her.

"Stop. People are coming. No matter what, don't open your mouth."

Feeling panic settle over her, Sakura took a few deep breaths to relax and huddled in the farthest corner of the cell. She hoped against all hope that whoever it was, they wouldn't come for her.

Moments later, a man walked up to the cell and stopped on the other side of the bars. Everything in him, from his unnaturally pale skin to the creepy glint in his strange eyes, made shivers run down her spine. She felt like he was a predator and she was his prey, which wasn't far from the truth. Then he spoke, with a sibilant kind of voice, and she saw that he had a forked tongue.

"What a prize I have…You are the key to my new body…You are going to seduce that Uchiha sweetheart of yours. It won't be hard; he'll be overjoyed to see you again. Then you're going to get pregnant and then I'll have my perfect body. With the Uchiha eyes and your perfect chakra control…I'll have a _perfect_ body…"

She felt horror course through her veins, then she realized that the man hadn't been looking at her, but rather at her cellmate. Her horror returned tenfold. Despite being older, and even if they healed her, the girl wouldn't survive through the baby's delivery.

"What makes you think I'll do anything for you?" asked the older girl, and she inwardly shook her head—what was the girl doing, antagonizing the snake man?

"If you care any for your cellmate, who is quite probably your sister, I'd suggest you do as I tell you to. Be grateful I'm going to have you healed at all."

She glanced at the older girl's bandaged, deformed hands, and her equally bandaged eyes, and shuddered imperceptibly. She didn't want to end up like her.

"Damn you," murmured her cellmate tiredly but with spite. "I'll do it, but she had better not be harmed."

"Of course. We wouldn't want to end such a _fruitful_ collaboration," replied the snake man.

With a last chilling chuckle, he left the both of them to their devices, and she finally felt like she could breathe once again. She glanced at her companion, noticed her clenched jaw, and closed her eyes in shame that she was to be used as a bargaining chip. She felt tears roll down her cheeks silently as she realized that the sole reason they had been put together was to make them forge a bond.

And she couldn't do anything.

-:-

"Concentrate. They'll kill us both if we follow their plan. This is our only chance to come out of this alive. Can you feel your chakra?"

"I…Hai! I do!"

"Good. Direct it into your hands. Mold it carefully."

Within moment, a mutter of discouragement was heard.

"I…I lost it."

"Don't despair. Try again."

The older girl's firm statement gave the younger one the strength to try again. And again. And again.

Until she finally managed to do it and gasped in amazement.

She set shining eyes on the older girl's form, a brilliant smile blooming on her face.

"I did it! I finally managed to do it!"

The smile she got in turn was positively feral.

"Right…let's bust out of this join, shall we?"

-:-

Inner Sakura knew that without proper equipment or knowledge, her chakra suppressors wouldn't disappear anytime soon. And the young Haruno wouldn't be able to get them off. She thought of the seal tattooed on her forearm. She herself couldn't use it because of the chakra suppressors and the younger child couldn't use it either as she would have to touch her, but…there was always a third possibility…

She took her forearm to her face and bit down harshly on the tender skin; blood filled her mouth as her canines broke the skin and pain assaulted her brain, but she tugged unaffectedly, first with her teeth, then with her long broken and chipped nails, and skin slowly separated from muscle.

It was painfully long and excruciating, but her survival instincts screamed at her to keep going, that if she dared to stop, she would never get out of that place alive. Tears of pain pinpricked her eyes, but she scrunched her eyebrows and kept going, kept going, kept ripping the skin with both teeth and nails alike, and even though her broken hands hurt and wouldn't listen to her, she did not stop.

The younger girl did try to make her stop, but Inner Sakura made her understand soon enough that what she was doing, though painful, was vital.

-:-

Young Haruno Sakura steeled herself as her cellmate detached a roughly round patch of skin from her forearm and threw it in her general direction. The bloody piece of skin flopped down wetly on the ground. She cringed, averting her eyes from it; her lower lip bled, her teeth having bitten straight through it. A few drops fell on the floor between her legs.

"Take it. If you push your chakra into it, it will send you straight to the medical village."

She looked down at the bloody patch of skin, nose scrunching up, but took it nonetheless.

"Wait. What about you?" she asked suddenly as the thought came to her.

"_I_'m going to escape too, but I'm gonna need your help. Since I can't use chakra, you'll have to help me get those manacles off of me so that I can escape too. First, I'm gonna take my pants off and you'll draw on it the same seal as the one on my skin. Since we've got no ink, use my blood to draw."

She made a disgusted face, one that she knew the older girl wouldn't see anyway, and put her index in the blood on the wet side of the patch of skin. Within moments, squinting, she set to work on the dirty fabric.

It was disgusting, and every fiber of her being was against touching blood like it was nothing, but she had decided by now to stop questioning her cellmate's orders, knowing that they were for the benefit of them both.

So when the older girl to her to put henge on them both and switch places, she did it with nary a sigh. She was assured by her companion that any discrepancies on appearance would be masked by the darkness of their cell.

"The thing they'll expect is a feeble girl with black hair, bandages on her eyes and hands, and chakra suppressors on. Just lay there and pretend to be too feeble to do much of anything. I'll do the rest."

-:-

Kabuto entered the cell slowly, barely giving a glance at the younger girl huddling next to the older one's cot except to push her out of the way roughly with his right leg.

The girl grabbed his waist, looking up at him pleadingly, and whined in a pitiful voice, "Please! Please don't hurt us! Don't hurt me! I haven't done anything! Please!"

With a sneer, he pushed her away and didn't give another thought to the pitiful civilian sprawled on the ground at his feet.

Or at least, he wouldn't have if said civilian didn't decide to suddenly jab a senbon in his ankle, instantly incapacitating him. He crumbled to his knees instantly as his joint gave in and sent him tumbling to the ground. Instantly, there were two bodies immobilizing him to the floor, and then a chain was choking him, crushing his windpipe and cutting off his airflow. He got up, standing on his only good foot, and reached behind him for the nuisance, but he couldn't seem to dislodge the girl. And the other one was being annoying, trying to immobilize his arms by hanging from them—it was working somewhat, he couldn't perform any jutsu with her there.

With a last grunt, he managed to fling her away from him. Victory filled him with sweet elation.

Then something swished just under his arms before he had a chance to move to finish the jutsu he was already preparing and pain lanced in his jaw. And then he knew no more.

-:-

Inner Sakura flopped to the ground, panting. She disentangled her body from Kabuto's, sighing in relief. If she hadn't managed to jab him in the jaw with a senbon clutched between her toes…

It was a lucky shot, mostly, since she couldn't see his head and could easily have missed the underside of his jaw. As it was, the senbon had sunk in easily straight through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. Kabuto was most definitely dead.

"It's finished, kid. You alright?" she called out softly.

A rustle of clothes indicated that the younger girl got to her feet, and then her voice answered, "Yeah. My back hurts, but I think I'm okay. What about him? Is he… dead?"

"Most definitely. Good job. I wouldn't have managed to get him if I'd been alone."

"Are you alright? You're wheezing…"

She nodded, panting, and gestured to the cooling body.

"Search him, he might have the keys to my chakra suppressors, since they were changed when I got here…"

The younger girl, though she loathed to approach the male who, moments before, had been trying to kill them ferociously, kneeled next to him and turn his clothes inside out in search of the elusive keys, but in vain.

"Sorry, I can't find them…"

"Dammit, if only I could open those manacles with a senbon…I wish I could let you leave now, girl, but it seems you'll have to help me follow his trail to his laboratory. Knowing him, that's where the keys are going to be." She trailed off pensively, then added, "If anything happens, you get out of here with the seal, no questions asked. Even if those things aren't off me yet."

Taking a deep breath, the younger Sakura nodded with a sharp but quiet "Hai!" that brought a wry smile on the other female's sallow face.

"Let's get going, then. Before anyone misses that guy…"

She stood up, arms stretched out in front of her, palms open, as she walked in the general direction of the door. Kabuto's weapons pouch felt heavy in her hands, but she knew it was a simple trick of her mind. Just because she felt like it had been too easy to kill the medic—even though with the young girl biting his fingers off and her cutting off his air flow, he had not exactly had it easy—didn't mean the guy wasn't dead. She had seen to that, plunged a kunai in his heart and a second in his skull even after he had been down, though she was sure he had not gained Orochimaru's resurrection jutsu. Just to be on the safe side. Though maybe retribution _had_ been a part of it. Still, she knew the two of them would never have managed to kill him if they hadn't had much luck on their side, or if he hadn't had his guard down around two supposedly incapacitated girls, or even if they hadn't surprised him enough for him to react just a second too late—he hadn't yet gained his incredible skills and paranoia.

Cold bars greeted her, and she blindly ran her hands to the right then to the left, and stepped out of the cell. She ran her right hand down the stone wall and motioned for the younger Sakura to get out too.

"Come on, girl. Concentrate. The trail is fresh, it will be easy to follow."

With a last glance at the fallen male, the pink-haired girl set to work.

"We need to go left."

The corridors were empty, which, in itself, surprised both girls, but Inner Sakura had a theory about that.

_At this point in time, Orochimaru is already an Akatsuki member, and it would be logical that an Akatsuki base is empty, since they're so well hidden. Let's just hope we don't run into anybody._

Surprisingly, they didn't. Whether that was just pure luck on their part or simply that the base was empty, they didn't know, but they sure weren't complaining.

Still, Kabuto's laboratory _clearly_ made the younger female uncomfortable—it was apparent she was restraining herself from grabbing onto the older girl's arm. Which made the latter quite glad she couldn't see, actually.

"What's around us?" she asked softly in a soothing tone.

"Jars…Rows and rows of glass jars filled with…dead things. Human things. B—body parts…" she trailed off, blinking, then forced her eyes away and continued, "a desk, ano…vials with colorful liquids…papers…papers…a big book…"

Inner Sakura stopped her.

"A desk? Check inside."

"Right. Eto…Let's see…Key, key, key…Ah! There it is!"

Victorious, she dropped it into Inner Sakura's waiting palms.

"Get the papers and the book and get out of here, I'll follow you once I manage to get these blasted things off."

"Promise?" asked the younger girl uncertainly, gathering the loose papers in her arms.

"Promise. Now go. I'll see you in a moment."

A dark chuckle behind her made her whirl around just as she pressed chakra in the seal. The last thing the young girl saw as she disappeared was a nightmarish face in the doorway to the lab.

_Nee-sama!_

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Whew! What a long chapter! Was it satisfying? It sure was easy to write (as opposed to the last couple of chapters) and fun to imagine. Do review, I always love to hear from you guys!

Hm. I think the next chapter should be fun. Look forward to it!


	54. Survival

I'm back, once again! Things are becoming…fun. Fufufu. This was, in parts, easy to write and in others, incredibly hard. Go figure. Still, I have to say I'm satisfied with the result. For the parts about Sakura, I'd suggest listening to Jan Garbarek's The Survivor, which can be found on his CD named Visible World, or, probably, on YouTube. ^^ Enjoy!

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Satoshi's head snapped up, eyes widening.

_This chakra…I know it!_

He rushed out of the room with urgent steps, heading straight for the stairs leading to the cave. His one-track mind barely registered that he wasn't the only one doing so, that other people—Tohru, Toranosuke, a few other medics—were running too. Blood rushed to his ears, obliterating all other sounds, though he knew by the wild gestures of the others that they had to be yelling.

The stairs disappeared quickly under his feet, and then he was in the cave, torch in hand. And found himself face to face with a bloodied pink-haired girl.

"Haruno Sakura…" he breathed, taking in the sight of the girl, eyes roving across every inch of her, from the traces of blood on her lips to the tear tracks on her cheeks, to the way her grimy hands clenched and unclenched sporadically, to the way she seemed overstrung with tension.

"I…I…"

"How? How did you come here?" he asked urgently.

The only answer he got was wordless but ruthlessly efficient in its simplicity. She took off one hand from her chest, shaking like a leaf, and handed him something; something that made his heart stop instantly.

She handed him a piece of skin, a piece of skin covered in blood, and through the blood he saw swirls of black ink, and his heart caught in his throat.

"That's from sensei's forearm," came a voice next to him, saying exactly what he thought.

He didn't turn, but he nodded in acquiescence at Tohru's words.

"Hai, hai it is. Come on, child, let's get you healed upstairs, and you can tell us everything that happened then," he said, urging her to follow him, he shared a knowing glance with Tohru. Clearly, the girl was going into shock; her eyes were wide but unseeing, and she looked blankly ahead, shaking terribly. "We have to warn Konoha."

"I'm on it."

-:-

At times, Itachi wanted to curse himself. Why had he worked so hard to become a chuunin, then an ANBU? Why, when it hadn't been enough, when he couldn't stop his most precious person's maybe-sister from being abducted? Why, when he couldn't find any trace of that existence most unique for him? Why, when he had traded his freedom for her? He was lost, lost within a nightmare of spying on his family, of assassinating people he didn't know, of ripping apart whole families just because he was ordered to, families that had that which he most yearned for.

With a sigh, he took the scroll from the hawk that had disrupted his training, read it, and headed straight for the Hokage Tower. He wondered what the Kage wanted, and desperately hoped that he wasn't about to meet him and the Elders for a rapport on how things were going in his family.

Heading straight for the building, he closed his feelings off; this was just a bad thing to live through. And then he could go back to the hollow apathy that had taken over his life.

"You asked for me, Hokage-sama," he said formally as soon as he entered the room.

"I did, Itachi-kun. I have received a hawk recently," he said, gesturing to the bird prancing up and down his desk. The Uchiha's heart faltered for a moment as he recognized the bird—and, more importantly, the stance of said bird. Not surprising, considering it was the exact same as that of any Uchiha.

_Konoha…_

"Young Sakura Haruno appeared in the cave below Sakura-sensei's house with a strange token in hand. And it appears that token was a sliver of tattooed skin belonging to Sakura-sensei. This situation must be handled with care, Itachi-kun. I will send Morino-san and Yamanaka-san to look at her mind and memories. I need someone else to go with them, and seeing as you are both talented and have an interest in the matter, I am sure you will do your utmost to protect Haruno-san."

-:-

_This is it._

Inner Sakura almost froze, only managing not to do so by pure strength of will, as the aura of the newcomer clearly screamed of death and murder, bloodshed and torture. A lesser person would have succumbed to it, stayed rooted to the spot and have waited to be hunted down. But not her. She had worked too hard, waited too long to have a chance at freedom. Going down so easily was _not_ an option.

She was not delusional enough to think she had a chance against him, however, even if she had been in prime condition. Which she clearly was _not_.

_Faster, faster…_

She struggled with the chakra suppressors, cursing her broken hands that wouldn't move like she wanted them to.

The man chuckled, a hissing sound that made the hairs at the back of her neck stand up reflexively.

"Little one…Don't leave so soon…We can have _so much fun_ together…"

Any kind of fun involving him meant disaster for everyone else; her movements became more frenetic as he came closer, walking slowly with the gait of someone knowing the other couldn't escape. The sensation of being prey didn't lessen.

She backed up against the shelves, noting the clinks the bottles and vials made as they rattled. In a moment of sudden clarity, she brought her shoulder hard against the shelves, toppling a few bottles to ground. She kicked them in his direction, knowing they wouldn't hit, and tugged harshly on her chakra suppressors—already, she could feel one of them yield…

Then he was on her, hands around her neck, foul breath in her face, and he was hissing at her that she would never escape him, that he would make sure her spirit was bent to his will and that she would regret ever going against him.

She gasped, twisted and turned in his grip, and the force of her movements finally opened forcefully one of her manacles—instantly, she grabbed a broken jar with her still manacled hand and crushed it, hard edges and all, against her assailant's head as her other hand shot to his chest and hit him with a flat palm full of chakra, effectively sending him flying across the room. As fast as she could, and most importantly before he could get at her again, she put the same hand to her thigh and pushed what little chakra she had left through the dirty layers of clothes. The crude seal, painted in blood across her pants, hidden beneath her tattered kimono, activated instantly—then she was gone.

And through her oxygen-depraved brain, she managed to think triumphantly that she had finally done it.

-:-

As he looked at his son prepare his bags, Fugaku noted that there was a spark in his apathetic eyes. It was the only thing alive in his closed-off face. Whatever it was that made him regain some life, he hoped it would stay in his life. At least one of them could feel somewhat alive, and it wouldn't be him. After all, nothing made him deader inside than having to deal with the Uchiha Elders.

He _could_ understand that they felt like their clan didn't have the respect it deserved—he felt like that most of the time, too—but did they really have to be so damn annoying about it? Constantly on his back for one thing or another, even going so far as to ask—more like order—his eldest son to spy on the Hokage. And they were even getting more riled up from that man who came from time to time to talk them into fomenting a rebellion. So far, he had gotten them off his back by invoking that looking for his heir's future wife took precedence, as it involved the future of their clan, but they objected that overturning the Hokage was just as important and that the more time passed, the less chances they had of finding the elusive medic. Why not concentrate on finding Itachi a fiancée within the clan?

Fortunately, Mikoto had put her foot down. Sakura-sensei was the only person able to understand Itachi and the only female he had ever been interested in. And if he chose to wait for her and concentrate on finding her, she would respect his choice. And the Elders better do it too, or they would find that her past as a kunoichi was not as far as they thought.

"I'm going, otou-sama."

"Say goodbye to your mother before you go."

Hopefully, the boy would keep that new sparkle of life even after his mission was over with.

-:-

Not only her brain, but her whole world was suddenly deprived of air, and she was lost, lost to turbulence and the flow of the world all at once. She was gasping, but nothing but fluid entered her lungs. She was feverish, but she was swathed in freezing liquid, and she was swirling, dancing to the tune of the river, bereft of control of any kind over her movements.

_Air! Need air!_

She flailed, limbs barely responding to the stimuli she sent them, and panic almost overwhelmed her as cold seeped through her fingers when she finally managed to get to the surface. Her mouth opened in a wordless scream, bubbles of precious air leaving her throat as she desperately tried to both keep afloat and find a pocket of air trapped beneath the ice. Cold water entered her lungs as she was swept away by the current.

_This is too stupid!_

Chakra. She needed chakra. Where was her precious, beloved chakra? Especially now, when she needed it most?

She needed chakra, damn it!

She pounded against the ice trapping her below it, in the deadly cold water, and in her desperation, searching in the deepest part of her body and soul, she finally felt a flicker.

_Now!_

Her fist punched, swift and sure, at the hard casing of ice; it burst outward with a resounding crack. Numb fingers grabbed at the hole, lips eagerly pressed to the opening, gulping in as-of-late elusive oxygen. With a few elbow jabs at the surrounding ice, the hole was enlarged enough for the tired girl to painfully hoist herself out of the freezing water and onto the snow-covered ice.

She panted, wheezed, and trembled all at once as she forced herself to drag her tired body out of the water and onto the shore. She didn't quite manage to do it. With her legs still laying precariously on the ice and her face squished on the snowy ground of the shore, she stopped moving, her body animated once in a while with an involuntary shiver or two.

_You should move, find cover, get warm!_

Staying still was a death warrant. Drenched in cold water as she was, she would either a) freeze to death, b) die of pneumonia or c) fall prey to whatever predator roamed this part of the country. Still, she could barely think let alone move anymore; her body simply refused to cooperate after being pushed far beyond its limits.

There was a flutter, not far from her, somewhere to her left, and then a mature voice, warm yet strangely wizened, spoke speculatively, in a tone that reflected interest and curiosity.

"Oh oh, what a strange human child. Not only blind, but so far from home, too…Art thou lost, little human? How strange that there should be no traces of thee elsewhere around here…How didst thou get here, blind child?"

"R-r-r-river," she managed to stutter, teeth clattering with cold.

"Oh my. How peculiar. Where dost thou come from?" the voice further inquired.

"L-land of Hot Wat-t-ter. M-m-m-medical village."

"Ooooh…Thou art that medic my daughters spoke of…How interesting…Fear not, child, for I shall bring thee back home."

Warmth encased her, living warmth, and then she let her mind go blank with the peace only sleep could bring.

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Now I'm gonna go and burry myself in books and study (I'm gonna die this time, I swear. My exam week is gonna be hell.).

Review, please! They're the best incentive I can ask for, especially since with the busy week ahead of me, I'll be down and tired all the time. They'll encourage me to forsake hours of sleep so I can write for you.

Good luck to my fellow exam-takers!


	55. Homecoming

Well, I'm posting this earlier than I planned to, but hell, I've finished writing it, so I might as well post it, right? I hope you like this 55th chapter! I suggest you listen to Rednex's Wish You Were Here while reading it, it should give you the appropriate ambiance.

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Itachi, Ibiki and Inoichi were shown to a room far from the busy sector of the main house, presumably so that the patient could rest without being disturbed.

"Do try not to scare the poor girl to death, Morino-san," murmured Inoichi with a pointed glance at the various scars that gave the interrogator quite an intimidating appearance. Well, that, coupled with the usual dark glare he sported and his drab clothes, which didn't help any.

"Hm," agreed the interrogator noncommittally. He opened the shoji door and entered the bedroom, soon followed by his companions. As they waited unobtrusively by the door, Satoshi walked to the sleeping form of the patient, kneeled next to the futon, and gently shook her awake.

"Haruno-chan? Please wake up," he uttered calmly to the sleeping girl.

Said girl groaned and frowned; she yawned, stretched and opened her eyes. She blinked up at the graying samurai and mustered a little smile.

"Eeeh…Is it morning already?" she asked, yawning like a cat.

"It is, child. There are some people from Konoha here who came to take you home, but they wish you would tell them your story, as you did with us. Can you do that?"

Rubbing her eyes, she nodded at him, then took her first good look at her visitors. One of them was scary-looking, but she recognized Ino-Pig's dad, which was comforting, and even Sasuke-kun's older brother. He really was handsome. Nearly as much as her Sasuke-kun. But her Sasuke-kun didn't look quite as tired and strained as Itachi did, either.

"Mmhm. Well, I dunno really what happened, but I lost consciousness when I was taken, and the first thing I know, I'm in this really gloomy place, see? All dark and damp. Reaaally creepy. And that's where I saw nee-sama. You see, we shared a cell. At first, I thought she hated me or at least didn't like me very much, 'cause the first thing she told me was not to touch her—I still don't really know why—but she was really nice to me. She took good care of me, and she had the whole plan to escape all planned out! See, she had things on her—chakra suppressors, she called them—and she couldn't use chakra to escape, so she taught me how to use mine. And then we switched places! I, ano…henged into her and lay down on her cot, and she acted like me, and when Megane-san came to our cell, we…"she gulped, remembering the gruesome scene, "we attacked him. It all happened so fast…nee-sama was on his back, and I was gripping his arms…and blood was in my mouth—his blood, see, I bit down so hard on his hand that…that suddenly, I had fingers in my mouth, but they weren't attached to his hand anymore. They'd come off…and then nee-sama…she, she…she managed to stab a pointy thing in his head, and he fell to the ground and didn't get up…" She took a few shuddering breaths to calm down, closed her eyes for a moment, then continued. "After that, we went to the lab and we took many papers, and then…and then…_he _came. The monster. And I did as nee-sama had told me. I used the seal to come here. She was supposed to follow me, but she—she never showed up."

"A seal, you say?" asked Ibiki, brows furrowing. "What seal?"

Satoshi, who had been anticipating the question, appeared at his side with a metal dish covered by a white cloth. In a swishing movement, he swept the cloth off, revealing a limp piece of flesh covered in ink scribbles. All eyes zoomed in on it, and a single whisper shook the room that had suddenly gone silent with as much force as a tsunami.

"That's Sakura-sensei's tattoo…"

Itachi couldn't be wrong. He had seen it before with his sharingan activated, and the sight of it was forever burned into his memory. More than that, he had glimpsed it so often, looking at her hand, never daring to take it in his own, that he would be able to recognize it anywhere.

Hope bloomed in him, making his chest swell, but just as it started to soar and lift his spirits, he remembered brutally that the elusive medic had not reappeared. Even if she had been alive long enough to help Haruno Sakura escape, what hint did he have that she was alive, even now? None. None but his instincts that screamed at him that she wasn't the sort of person who would just let herself die; she was a survivor, one who would fight tooth and nail to make it back to her loved ones. That much he was sure of.

"Haruno-chan, this may be very important. May I see your memories?" asked Inoichi gently but with a firmness that belied the severity of the situation.

The girl cocked her head to the side and bit down on her lower lip.

"Will it hurt?" she asked with uncertainty.

"It won't," assured the blonde man.

"Then okay. But if it hurts, I'm telling everyone you are a big old meanie liar! And to Ino-Pig, too!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest and nodding to herself in satisfaction at what she perceived was a worthwhile threat.

With a smile, the blonde man kneeled next to the child, and then he was looking at events weeks old.

In the room, everyone waited with baited breath for the expert to come out of the head of the young girl. The serious glance he shared with Ibiki and Itachi when he came out of his stupor called for a private meeting, and so the adults cleared out of the room while Satoshi suggested to Sakura that she go get some breakfast. Itachi followed Ibiki and Inoichi and waited with them in the corridor. Satoshi nodded at them when he closed the door behind him and motioned for them to follow him.

"We'll talk in sensei's office. We won't be overheard there."

The silence was broken only once the shoji door was effectively closed behind them, and then all of them took their seats in solemn silence. The first one to speak was Ibiki.

"I can say that there was no lie in what Haruno-san told us," he said calmly. "However, just because she believes what she told us doesn't make that true."

"How so?" inquired Satoshi, brows furrowing—if this continued, he would get so wrinkly even his family wouldn't be able to recognize him anymore.

"People's memories tend to fade or even change after time goes by. The more time passes, the more likely it is that the memories aren't completely accurate. And as the girl has been taken for a certain amount of time, it is quite possible her memories have been tampered with by her kidnappers."

"Thus I had to view her memories, to ascertain whether or not her memories were real and, if they weren't to see the true ones."

"Oh? Is that possible?" asked Satoshi, intrigued at the idea.

Inoichi nodded.

"You see, memories can't be erased per se. they can be changed or repressed—sealed, if you will—so deeply that the victim doesn't even know it. However, a master interrogator trained in my field can spot those discrepancies and recover lost memories. That's what I was to verify. And she was not tampered with, this I can assure you. In fact, the only reason she was taken was to get the cooperation of her cellmate—and though the lighting was poor at best in that cell, I was able to determine that that person was Sakura-sensei."

-:-

"Thou must not sleep yet, child. It could be dangerous—thou couldst not awaken again."

She barely managed to groan—whether in acquiescence or protest was uncertain—and burrowed her face deeper in the soft fur.

"Cling to my neck, humanling. Thou needst medical help soon—and such help is not to be found in my realm. Brace yourself, little one; we are going to the human realm."

-:-

A strong chakra signature appeared suddenly, jarring everyone from their thoughts. It was powerful, yet it didn't feel human. Why did a summon—and a rather powerful one at that—head straight this way?

"Outside. Now."

Already, people were moving out to see what was coming—and, more importantly, if the one coming was friend or foe.

Satoshi left the room in a hurry, the three Konoha ninja on his heels. Protecting this place until Sakura-sensei came back was his job, and he would be damned before he failed. If a summon came to destroy her home…

The speck that had been growing in the distance grew bigger by the moment, and soon everyone saw the winged beast flap its way closer to the waterfall. And then someone exclaimed, "Wait! The summon's not alone! I think there's someone on its back!"

And then Tohru yelled loudly, "That flicker of chakra! That's Sakura-sensei!"

At that exclamation, everyone concentrated on the chakra signature, barely noticeable in contrast to the immense source that was the summon, instead of relying only on their eyes. Soon, cries of "Sensei!" and "Sakura-sensei!"rose from the small crowd, stopping only when the furred beast landed graciously on the ground a small ways away.

From the creature's neck, a small form detached itself and landed with a grunt on the ground, putting a hand to its side in pain. Then the female's head lifted with difficulty, and a small but real smile stretched her cracked lips.

"Hey…I'm home…"

The soft words resonated in the silent for a single moment before cheers rose up from the crowd.

And then the female dropped like a stone.

-:-

The largest operation room was a bustle, medics running around, screaming orders for others to bring bandages, gauze and herbal lotions. Forced to wait outside, Itachi could only listen to the rumba going on inside the room. He didn't know what to feel. His relief at finding her alive was tempered down by the angst that remained in him. Seeing her in that state of blatant starvation, nearly dead from both inside and outside injuries had shocked him more than he had imagined possible. It was like he had known of such a possibility, but it hadn't really sunk in until now.

He looked down at his balled fists in his lap and forced himself to unclench them. They were starting to shake…

A hand squeezed his shoulder, and he looked up to see Tohru standing over him, bloody, exhausted, but otherwise content.

"You should get some rest, Uchiha-san," he said calmly. "Or so I should say, but I suppose you'd rather see sensei now?"

The black eyes that stared back at him were the most unveiled he had ever seen them.

"May I?" asked the Uchiha vulnerably, glancing at the open door from which medics were now pouring out.

"Go in," ushered the blond, standing aside.

Slowly, the boy got to his feet and moved in past the medics, eyes riveted on the unconscious form smothered in blankets on the futon that had replaced the operations table at the center of the room. His eyes remained glued onto the female's face, looking for any sign of life. And then she took a most glorious breath—it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He ran a hand across her forehead, face softening as she scrunched her eyebrows and groaned in her sleep.

"Hey, sensei…I'm glad you're alive…"

A hint of a smile appeared on the girl's tired face. He liked to think she had heard him.

As he sat down next to the futon, eyes trained on the slow rising and falling of the bedding, he thought to himself that sometimes, waiting wasn't so bad.

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Wow, ending on a happy note! I must be sick. Lol. I'm posting this early to lift the spirits of everyone who has exams this week like me. Enjoy the break!


	56. Revelations

Since I really hate this chapter, I added a nice tidbit at the end, just to make you salivate. Please enjoy this while taking a break from studying and/or working, guys! Good luck for those of you who haven't finished your exams! I'm cheering you on!

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Itachi looked up from his place at Sakura's bedside, looking at the newcomer curiously. It hadn't been that long since he had sat down next to her—or had it? He didn't quite know. Time had stopped meaning anything to him the moment he had seen the medic again. He looked at the blond who, at the intense stare he was getting, explained, "It is clear that until recently, she was in cold weather—she was drenched when she arrived and flight did not help her injured state—so we can't afford to let her sleep for too long, lest she slip into a coma from which she'd never wake or even potentially get brain damage. So we have to wake her up regularly tonight."

Itachi nodded and waited with bated breath as Tohru kneeled next to the futon and gently shook the girl awake.

"Sensei…Wake up, sensei…"

The girl twitched, moaned, then groaned. She stretched, then stopped immediately. With a frown, she hissed in pain as her injuries were disturbed.

"Whoa…this hurts like hell…" murmured the girl.

_And yet this feels like heaven on Earth for me_, thought the young Uchiha.

"Hello, sensei."

The girl smirked, a smirk both males had seen before, yet it felt different somehow.

"Well, hello there, lover. Fancy seeing you here," she answered in a scratchy voice.

Both males started at that. Sakura-sensei would never have referred to Itachi as "lover", after all she had objected to them being in a relationship.

"You—who are you?" asked Itachi suspiciously. "You look like Sakura-sensei, but…"

Fear clenched his heart as he thought that maybe she had been brainwashed or had lost part of her memory. Could that be the reason she was acting differently?

"You're sharp, Itachi-kun. True, I'm not Sakura. Well, not the one you know, anyway. But I'm not an enemy either." She gulped, grimacing at the dryness of her throat. "Could I get a glass of water? It would really help, especially if I am to tell you my tale. Thanks. Hm…Maybe you should get everyone in here. The samurai, for one, and that tiger too. And…oh, I recognize those chakra signatures. Get Yamanaka-san. And definitely Morino-san."

As Tohru departed with a raised eyebrow, she turned to Itachi and whispered, "You know, the girl does like you. And after what I'm gonna tell you, it'll be your chance to get her to agree, so don't miss it."

There was silence for a moment, then he asked in a similar tone, "Why are you telling me this?"

She raised a hand to his face and murmured emotionally, gently tracing his cheek with the back of two fingers, "Oh, honey, that's 'cause I want her to be happy."

He didn't have time to ask her why as Tohru entered the room, followed closely by Toranosuke, Satoshi, Inoichi and Ibiki. Fortunately, he hadn't brought the younger Sakura, for which she was grateful. That discussion was not for her ears—not yet, at least; or maybe never.

She waited until they were all sitting around the futon before speaking. Of course, she sat up and took a long gulp of water beforehand—this would be a _long_ discussion.

"Now that everyone is here…I suppose I should explain a few things, starting with who I am. I'm not Sakura, yet I am. I was actually created by her when she was young, years ago. I was a second personality, one that said in her mind everything that she felt she could not say out loud. Then she began to not need me anymore. Normally, I would have disappeared, merged with her, but she chose to leave me in charge of her mind. As a guard, you could say."

"Then what happened to Sakura-sensei?" asked Inoichi, brows furrowing.

"I did what I was supposed to do, what she asked me to. In order to make sure she wasn't erased in case of a brainwashing, I locked her in her own mind, in the farthest recess I could find, and watched over her barricaded door. And I waited, while the 'blank slate' controlled this body. I don't know how long…but it felt like a while. I waited for an opportunity. Anything. But I…We were dying…Even after the first months of torture—at least it felt like months—they decided to turn us into a mindless, loyal puppet. And they couldn't heal us, so they sent for medics. And one of them was Kabuto…" she trailed off, lost into thoughts less than happy, but remembered she had an audience and shook her head with a wry smile. She took a gulp of her abandoned glass of water and continued her tale, glad nobody had interrupted her. "Well…We must have screwed up the timeline more than we thought, 'cause he was already working for Orochimaru. And he took us. Suddenly, we were in another cell, one that was worse than before, and then…then Sakura-chan was brought in. To make us close, so she could be used against us. And my escape plan changed. I taught her how to use her chakra, and…I got her to help me with incapacitating Kabuto. We…got him, though it was mainly because we had surprised him, and he had underestimated us…but I still couldn't use my chakra…so I had Sakura-chan follow Kabuto's chakra trail back to his lab, and she found the keys to my chakra suppressors…but before I could get them off, Orochimaru appeared…she disappeared with the seal I had given her, and I was left with the snake. But even he underestimated me. And when I managed to get one of the manacles off, I used the seal Sakura-chan had painted on my pants to come back here…except she hadn't painted it correctly. In the darkness of our cell, I can't blame her for making a mistake, really…"

There was one thing that she had said that made Ibiki tick.

"What's the deal with the timeline?" he asked, intrigued.

The injured girl remained silent for a long while, then said shortly, "I had intended to tell you, but I think _this_ you need to hear from the Sakura you know. Give me…2 hours. In two hours, she'll be back to explain everything."

She let herself flop back onto the futon; within moments, her breathing deepened and slowed down until she sank into a deep meditative state.

The males were left with no choice but to wait for her to come out of that state.

"Think she was telling the truth?" whispered Inoichi.

"There was no trace of a lie in her words. But I think she omitted something."

-:-

Inner Sakura marched straight to the barricaded door and pressed a hand to the chains.

"Come on, Sakura. It's time to get out."

And with that, she tore at the chains. They yielded surprisingly easily, but then again, she was the one who had put them there in the first place, so she had an easy time breaking down what she had built. Still, she felt some excitement in her chest as she put a hand on the naked door. How long had it been since she had had some company in that mindscape? Especially since she had already taken over the empty shell, whose memories she had transferred in that sealed room. Behind it, even in her sleep, Sakura had to have started to assimilate them.

The darkness was comforting, and being able to see light in the mindscape, while it was incomparable to the light of the sun, felt so reassuring…

She pushed the door, and it opened with a creak. There, in the middle of the room, a lavish bed with crimson sheets was lighted by the torches. And in the center of that bed, curled on herself in fetal position, lay Sakura.

"Hey there, my other self. Time to live."

-:-

The silent girl took a deep breath, as though she hadn't breathed in years, back arching off the futon; she rolled on her side, gasping for air in a body that felt painful and awkward.

_Pain, pain, pain!_

She forced herself to block off the pain, dull her senses and ride the wave instead of trying to go against it. And her body hurt like she had broken every bone twice and them reset them backward. And it felt heavy, which she subconsciously chartered as being a side-effect of chakra exhaustion.

_Argh!_

She bit down harshly on her lower lip, but tasting blood felt less like a liability than crying out would have been.

A warm hand settled on her shoulder, and she was instantly moving, twisting it before she could even think of reacting. The cry of pain jolted her to her senses, making her drop the limb like it was hot coals.

"Great gods…I'm sorry…" she apologized to the male she now recognized as Tohru.

"Iie, sensei…I shouldn't have surprised you," replied the blond, rubbing gingerly his wrist. "It was clear you didn't recognize your surroundings, but you looked in pain…"

She lay a hand on his arm and sent a wave of soothing chakra in it, replying gently, "Iie…You've always been a sweet guy, I know. I just…feel a bit disoriented still. Give me a minute to adjust. Inner just booted me out of my mind, I'm still dizzy."

"Is that what your double personality is called?" asked Itachi, managing not to inflect his tone with anything yet, at the same time, managing not to sound clinically inquisitive.

"Yeah. She's totally awesome," answered Sakura. "She's strong and funny, and she's one damn good mind guard."

A wistful smile appeared on her face, laced with affection but heavy with a lifetime's worth of memories.

"Anyway. Um…There are some things Inner hasn't told you that you need to know. Please don't ask questions before I finish. So…The first person who kidnapped me did so on Danzo's orders. He wanted to know what I had on him, but when he realized I wouldn't tell him anything even under torture, he decided that brainwashing me to work for him was the second best solution. Except my 'illness' put a wrench in his plans, so he had to ask for an outside medic. I don't think he knew Kabuto worked for Orochimaru, because he wouldn't have asked him, but that means the timeline is changing, which means I've changed it, and now things might not happen when they should have, so I can't anticipate them anymore…"Realizing she was rambling, she shook her head and took a deep breath. "Sorry. To answer your previous question, Morino-san, what I mean is that I am not from here. Surely you must have noticed Haruno Sakura-chan's resemblance to me, both physically and in terms of her chakra. That would be because I am her older self."

She brought her hands together and slowly began making handsigns, careful of her bones that weren't completely healed and creaked painfully with each movement she made—damn Danzo for breaking them.

"I may not look that much older than her, but this is not my real appearance. Rather, it's the result of a jutsu that a friend of mine used on me in the future. Morino-san, look carefully at the signs I'm making—you should be able to recognize this jutsu."

The scarred man nodded, thoughtful.

"If it is indeed the one I think it is…It negates any and all jutsu to change someone's appearance, even plastic surgery. We use it in interrogation when we think someone is hiding his real identity or pretending to be someone else."

With a small smile and a nod, the girl pressed her hands together for a last sign. And then pain became her world.

"GYAAAAAAAAAAH!"

-:-

Kisame frowned, heading to his room. He was tired and pissed off, and truth be told, he wanted nothing more than to sleep for a lifetime. But missions needed to be done. Fortunately, the last one he had been sent on had taken him close to one of the bases, so he got to return to a safe place to spend the night. It had been a while since he had been there, and he was sure that his room was dusty as hell, but if you asked him, it was better than risking being seen by hunter-nin.

But something about the place unsettled him, called to his instincts and made the hairs at the back of his neck bristle. And since he had learned the hard way what happened when he ignored his instincts, he strayed from his path towards his dusty bed and headed for the bowels of the base.

The deeper he went, the more it stank and the more he felt unsettled—_I bet the snake's up to no good again_.

How many times had he come here in the past, only to see Orochimaru experiment on some poor soul or another? Too many times to count. Even if the guy was a Sannin, he was a total nutcase.

Yep. There went the scent of blood. So strong and pungent it would have made him gag, had he been a normal person who didn't crave that very same scent. The stench was strong, but it wasn't solely because of the closed space—lots of blood must have been spilled this time. Ah! And there was the snake's odor, and one he thought he recognized—and one that made him stop dead in his tracks, pupils dilated before his eyes narrowed dangerously.

_Your experiments didn't lead you on the right track this time, you bastard!_

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Can't say I'm really satisfied with the chapter, but when things have to be written…And since I despised "And then she explained everything" and phrases alike to lazily go around the problem of explaining things…Yeah. Well, I'm gonna post one more chapter before Christmas, and then I'll be off for a little vacation of my own. And I promise the next chapter is going to be much better than this one. After all, it will have a pissed off Kisame in it!


	57. WorldShattering Truths

First of all, people, just a note for those of you who are confused: Since time has passed, Itachi is 11 at the moment. Everything will be explained, but it's just so you don't get lost.

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The woman who shivered in the now too-small sleeping yukata looked very much like they imagined Sakura would in a few years' time—Itachi remembered Inner Sakura looked almost exactly like her when he had looked in her mind, more than a year ago.

"There," she panted. "This is what I truly look like."

"How old are you, really?" asked Itachi after a long moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Well…how long have I been gone?" she asked in a rough voice.

"It's the end of October now, so…about a year and a half," answered Tohru. "We were doubtful you were still alive, especially since your…younger self came back several weeks before you."

"Hm…really? Then that must mean time passes by differently in the dimension I ended up in…Interesting…Ah, anyway, since I was 26 when I got here, I guess that'd make me…30? I suddenly feel very old…"

She scratched at the too tight bandages on her hands with a bittersweet smile.

"I didn't come back in time on my own volition. It was not because I wanted to save the world or anything noble like that." She sighed and exposed her chest, revealing the giant scar on her torso. "My firend's Rasengan tore through me on the battlefield—it was the only way to get to the man who had taken my eyes from me and started the war that ravaged our world…Several years in the future, a man, driven by hate and delusions of grandeur, decided to harness the power of the tailed beasts and use it to destroy the world. It lasted for many, many years…Most of the people died, civilians and ninja alike. My friend…I was taken by that man, tortured to make my friend come out and fight him…So he decided to make me scream. Took one of my eyes. Then the other. Kept me from being able to fight back, to even be able to be a ninja anymore…I…I was convinced I was going to die, so I did the only thing I could to be of use to my friend. I glued myself to the bastard's side to immobilize him, with some help from another friend of ours…and then I got a hole blown in my chest. But I was pretty happy. The bastard had been hurt too, and he was dying."

She shook her head ruefully with a mirthless chuckle and ran a hand through her hair. It really wasn't something nice to remember,

"My friend's wife was a medic, like me. She tried to save me, using a technique I was experimenting with. It was supposed to help us save more people with deadly wounds. Basically, it compressed a person's cells together to close wound and recreate obliterated flesh. I was still working on it, so it was still in its experimental stage. One of the effects of compressing the cells was to get a smaller body—how small depended on the size of the injury. The bigger the injury, the smaller the body. That's how I got stuck with a child-like body. There was a problem, though. When she used the technique, the bastard tried to use a last one of his own—the two jutsu clashed together, and suddenly I was here."

She encompassed the whole room with a large encompassing movement.

"At first…I didn't even know I was in the past. Not until I met Uchiha Fugaku-san."

"Why?"

"Because he was dead."

For a long time, nobody said anything. It seemed that words would break the moment and that would not be the right thing to do at the moment.

"Once I realized that I was in the past, I tried my best not to stand out, not to change what I knew was to come."

"Why not?" asked Tohru. "If you knew how bad things were going to get, why didn't you try to stop it?"

"Because I knew that the bastard would die if I didn't mess with the timeline. Because if I changed anything, I could jeopardize that. But then I got more and more involved in this world, and I came to love it and the people here. And eventually, since I was changing things anyway, I decided that I was going to change things the way I wanted them to be changed. I decided to stop sitting by while things rolled past me. I decided that I wouldn't watch as people who had become dear to me died one by one at the hands of a murderous nutcase. So I fought to come back alive, to tell the truth before I died."

"Wait, wait…Are you saying you'll commit suicide or something so you don't fuck things up with the timeline?" asked Tohru, running a shaky hand through his hair.

"I thought about it for a long time, but I won't, although I don't know how long I'll survive. As I said, that jutsu wasn't perfect…all of the animals I tested it on ended up dying…it has something to do with the 'memory' in my cells. My body knows that this is not the form I should have, so they stretch, expand to make me regain my real size. It's a lengthy process, which is why I look like I'm aging at the same rate as a child. But do you know what happens to something that is stretched too much? It. Snaps. That's what is happening inside me. Before that happens, I have to regenerate my cells—enough of them for me to last a while—and try to multiply them so my body isn't stretched too much. Well. It sounds easy to do, but it's quite a bit more complex to actually do it. Outwardly, it looks just like my body is rejecting itself, so a normal medic wouldn't know what to look for. And I've been gone for a year and a half already…Usually, I heal myself before the secondary effects are visible, but now…Many of the bruises that you can see mottling my skin are actually caused by my cells snapping. This time, it seems the henge I use to hide the big scar on my chest will also hide those, ne? It wouldn't do to make people worry about that too. I'd say within a week, if I work hard on healing my cells, I'll be stable once again."

She yawned tiredly and settled back against the futon.

"The jutsu will wear off soon, and it's gonna hurt like a bitch, gentlemen. I suggest you get out before I offend your ears with my, since I have a feeling I'll be falling asleep just after that. For now, I'll ask you not to reveal anything of what I told you. The whole 'coming from the future' thing is something that must never get out of here. As for Danzo and Orochimaru…I have to plan very carefully before anything is said and done. Now go. Regaining my true form makes my cells stretch even more than usual and I'm already feeling like shit without that."

-:-

Kisame stalked down the corridors, bloodlust rising in him with each step he took. On his back, Samehada thrummed in excitement, further fueling his anger.

He felt something close to indignation at the thought that someone had dared to take his little medic and made her bleed, someone other than him—hey, he did like her but he was still a man who loved blood. And that the one who had done so was the snake creep only made him more furious.

He wanted to maim him, to rip him apart limb by limb, to bathe in his blood and watch the light of life leave his eyes, he wanted to trample on his corpse and feed on his bowels, and he wanted to _make the man_ _hurt_.

He stalked to where the blood smelled freshest and felt his nostrils flare in anger as he saw the unmistakable signs of battle in what he remembered to be the snake's lab. Or one of them, at least. Not like he often went down there. Too many chances of seeing the creep.

Broken glass and wood splinters littered the floor, papers were strewn all over, some of them caught under the broken furniture, and suspicious brownish stains covered the whole lot. Suspicious stains that smelled too much like blood not to be.

And not all of them were Sakura's.

_Good girl, at least you got him back!_

He knew that the pride he felt toward her was completely irrational—after all, he hadn't been involved in the snake beating. But maybe he felt protective and possessive enough of her that he could justify feeling that way. Maybe.

He frowned. He had hoped to find the snake down there, but apparently, things were not going to be that easy. He whirled around, intent on following the fading trail, but it seemed his luck had come back.

"Well, well. If it isn't the Blue Monster," chuckled a voice that grated on his nerves in all its sibilant darkness.

"Orochimaru," he answered in a growl, too pissed off to be his usual polite self.

"If our leader sent you to retrieve the girl, I'm afraid you're too late. She escaped a while ago," said the pale man detachedly with an idle wave of his hand.

"He knows about this?" asked Kisame, feeling something dark swell in him.

"Of course. He has kept an eye on her for a good while, waiting to remove the thorn in his side that she was being more and more."

Black crept at the edges of his vision, honing in until a pinpoint remained, a pinpoint focused solely on the Sannin. Blood pounded in his ears—one beat, two beat, three—he saw his fist punch the pallid male in the face, saw blood trickle down his nose and stain his grinning lips, then he poofed out of existence, and he felt his vision go back to normal. His enhanced senses worked overtime to send him any and all sensory signals in the premises. And they told him there was no one else in the base, not even another clone.

With a roar of rage, he whirled around and punched the wall, sending bits of rock spraying around him. His hand hurt, blood ran down his fingers from his raw knuckles, but his head felt clearer. Clearer, yet dizzy at the same time.

Thoughts ran around in his head, thoughts of Sakura and Madara and world dominion, and he froze as he thought of a discussion he had once had with Sakura about what Madara intended to do, about how he intended to take control of the world. Back then, he had been certain that he was doing the right thing—or at least, he didn't feel tugs at his conscience back then—but he also hadn't felt this attached to the girl. She had gone from boredom-reliever to amusing girl to the only person close to him, the only person who could understand him, if not agree with him. And he could not live without her in his life. Not ever, not even if it was the only man he followed who got rid of her.

If the world Madara was going to create was one in which she could not exist, he didn't want to be any part of it.

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Well, happy Christmas! Not to worry, though Kisame only got to dispel a clone, Orochimaru has got a major ass-kicking coming to him. Hm. So does Madara, in fact. Ah, the wonders that can happen when a man gets serious…

Well, I'm off for my break! I'll probably be posting a one-shot or two during that time (now that I have time to write, I'll hopefully be able to finish the ones I had begun writing), but this story is going to wait until January!


	58. Admissions

Happy New Year, everyone! Enjoy this new, happy chapter! I hope you are satisfied with it. After all, you get a nice moment between Itachi and Sakura!

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Sakura came to slowly, feeling somewhat more rested than before. Her body still ached, as she suspected it would for a good while, but she could feel her chakra returning to her, now that she didn't have chakra-sucking manacles anymore. As she thought so, she noticed that the small weight that had been the remaining handcuff had disappeared. Someone must have unlocked it during her time out. Most likely Ibiki, since he was used to such manacles and had probably been able to tweak it open even without the broken key.

She hummed contentedly and spread her chakra through her body to check on her injuries. She was quite happy to note that they were healing nicely—especially her hands, since they were the tools of her trade.

A small smile appeared on her face as she felt a cooling chakra wave over her.

"Itachi-san," she murmured happily if rather sleepily. "Have I slept for long?"

"Hn. You needed rest. And you still do, sensei."

And he did, because he too wanted the silence to end.

"I thought a lot, sensei," he began quietly. "I tried to think differently of you for all that I didn't know about you. I did. But I couldn't. Despite the many years you have over me, despite everything you have seen. Or maybe because of it. I don't know. Everything has changed so suddenly—or rather, it has been revealed so fast…Yet you made me feel like peace was more than just a dream, and you treated me like an equal, despite our age difference. You were the only person to understand me and…I believe you still are. But there is one thing I have to ascertain before I can possibly go on."

He closed his eyes to steel himself for her answer, took a deep breath, and let out, "Sensei, why did you never accept me as a potential partner?"

Instantly, she tensed, and though it was not easily perceptible, it told Itachi that the subject was very important—enough to distress her. And it encouraged him to plough on.

"Please, sensei," he said, placing a hand on hers, "I need to know."

It took all he had not to put inflection on "need", and he knew he had to be careful not to frighten her off. This conversation…it was of the utmost importance to him.

"I…Itachi-san, much of the insight I have about you comes from my knowledge of the future. I didn't know you personally, but I knew of you, and I read your file…and discovered many things on my own…I know so much about you—what you are capable of doing…I know _your future_, Itachi-san. Can you realize what that entails? All good and bad things…terrible things…" she trailed off distantly, as though remembering things from another time.

"Sensei…as you said, some things have changed already. The future you know may come to change even more. The me from your time isn't the one I am. He wasn't influenced by you; he didn't love you as I do. Whatever he was or became, I am different. If you are disinclined to give me a chance, please answer me. Is it because of my future?"

She hung her head, hands clenching in her lap. "Must you torment me so?" she uttered in a strangled voice, looking possibly more vulnerable than she had ever had.

"Sensei…"

He found himself taking her in his arms, and she leaned against him tiredly, neither of them saying anything.

"Whatever it is," murmured Itachi, "believe in me. I am not the same man you knew, as you are not the same Haruno Sakura who pines after my younger brother. And this Itachi loves only you."

He could feel her biting her lip against his neck and pressed on, "If you didn't know my future, would you be amenable to a relationship with me?"

She disentangled herself from him and pushed him gently away with a profound inhalation.

"I…would," she admitted slowly with reluctance.

"Then say no more," he urged her, and covered her lips with his own.

-:-

It was with revulsion and anger that Kisame explored the base in search for more clues about Sakura's whereabouts. There was not much to see but a dark cell in which a corpse was rotting. That, and blood. The smell made his instincts run wild, but it did comfort him in some way, as it was an indication that she had been alive a few weeks prior.

_She's strong. If she was alive then, she is now._

He stalked out of the base, intent on finding both Sakura and Orochimaru; his cloak lay forgotten on the ground in the hall of the base, left to gather dust alone.

-:-

Tohru opened the shoji door with a small smile and noted happily that Sakura was awake.

"Hello, sensei. I have come to change your bandages," he announced.

"Thank you. My injuries are healing quite nicely."

He nodded and took her right arm in his hand. As he set about unraveling the bandages covering it from elbow to fingers, he remarked, "When you showed me how to regrow skin, so long ago, I hadn't imagined the knowledge would be of use to me to heal you. I'm afraid I'm not as good at it as you are, but I did my best and so did the other medics. But…for the finishing touch, to make sure there is no scarring, I think you should give it a go yourself."

"Hm…I think you may be right. I do commend you on the good job you did," she answered with a warm smile.

"Thank you, sensei. I only wish we could have done about your eyes, but…the transplant was not done well. And they were not tended to during your incarceration. My guess is that your kidnappers were so concentrating on keeping you alive that they failed to properly care for them post-surgery. I'm sorry, sensei. Necrosis set in, and an infection started to spread from your optic nerves. You were very lucky, sensei. Waiting any longer would have put your life into jeopardy. Actually, I'm surprised you managed to escape at all, especially since the pain from the infection and flawed surgery must have been quite excruciating."

"Aa…I _was_ wondering what made them hurt that much…but the presence of my younger self soon overrode any thought I had of those eyeballs. Her mere presence, some rooms away, is enough to make my head pound, and should I happen to touch her…we aren't meant to coexist, and as the displaced one, I would immediately die—as I have once before, in Konoha. At the time, since I was in convalescence, people thought it was merely a relapse."

Tohru shook his head ruefully and started to apply an ointment onto Sakura's still tender skin.

"I'm sorry. And you had finally gotten eyes…you could have seen once again…"

She waved his excuse away gently.

"Iie…It doesn't bother me much, truthfully. I preferred to spend my time and energy on more important things. But when my chakra was stolen from me and I was thrust into darkness once again, I swore that I would not be made so defenceless again. And when I escaped, I gave Sakura-chan the journal of Orochimaru's student. And I obtained, at last, notes that will most probably give me the last elements to heal Satsuki-chan. And if that journal contains indications that could help me regrow my eyes…" she smiled at him, looking more at ease than he was used to seeing her, and continued, "If they don't, I will seriously look for a new pair of eyes. Transplants are better than nothing. And the people around me would feel better."

She got up gingerly and flexed her fingers, happy to note that they didn't hurt much anymore.

"Well, a walk would do me some good. Staying holed up in here all day is no good. I direly need some fresh air."

-:-

Kisame chanced upon Jiraiya purely by luck. He had been looking for clues as to where Sakura could have disappeared off to, and thought to head first to her medical village, for he knew of her tattooed seal and found that maybe she could have used it to escape.

On his way there, he sensed the older man's chakra signature and made a detour. After all, with his contacts all over the place, maybe the man could tell him if there had been news of Sakura recently.

As usual, the Sannin wasn't exactly thrilled to see him.

"What do you want this time?" asked the white-haired man disgruntledly.

"Have you had news of chibi-sensei?" he asked straight out. "Sightings, anything?"

"Nothing, why?" asked Jiraiya suspiciously.

Kisame crossed his arms over his chest.

"I…found where she had been imprisoned. There were signs of a fight, and she was not there anymore. No trail, either. But it happened some time ago—I thought you might have heard if she had reappeared somewhere."

Jiraiya frowned, lost in thought for a moment.

"It is certainly interesting…I had half a mind to visit her village soon anyways, so I guess an earlier visit would do no harm."

"That was where I was heading. Let us travel together."

The Sannin stopped the nuke-nin before they could take off.

"Why did you not take your cloak with you on a cold day such as this, in the middle of autumn?"

"There is no Akatsuki for me anymore," answered Kisame firmly and grimly.

-:-

Sakura was beginning to get suspicious. When she had said she wanted to take a walk around the village, Tohru had said that she needed to be accompanied and that she needed to wait for him to fetch her a coat. And of course he hadn't come back. No. _Itachi_ had walked in with the promised coat, saying in confusion that Tohru had said that she was waiting for him.

So he had put the coat around her shoulders and led her out of the house—slowly, as she was still injured and walked more slowly than usual.

They were left alone, people even going out of their way to conspicuously disappear at their approach. It was enough to make her certain that something was going on. Especially since she had overheard Tohru murmuring to himself that they were going to cook some sekihan to celebrate.

Yet another example of the grapevine.

"Itachi-san…Why exactly is everyone avoiding us?" she asked as yet another medic bowed at them and scurried off.

"Ano…They are giving us some time alone," said Itachi, looking as uncomfortable as she felt. For someone as private as he was, all the attention they got could only make him disquieted.

"Why would they—oh. Right. Word must have gotten out about the two of us."

"Aa. I think…Ishika-san happened to tell Akawa-san that I have gotten you to agree to my proposal. In the kitchen. Anybody could have heard. And probably did."

Her cheeks pinked, delighting him with her shyness. He looked around, noted in satisfaction that nobody was around, and took her hand in his. His smile enlarged at the deep crimson flush that bloomed on her face.

_How delightful._

-:-

Kisame was a man who had an abnormally large supply of chakra, to the point that he was often described as a tailless beast. As such, it was quite rare for him to find someone who had as much chakra as him.

As such, when, approaching the medical village, he felt an unusually large chakra signature approaching it from another direction, one that was easily as immense as his, he felt something like dread pool in his stomach. Without even glancing at each other, he and Jiraiya sped up, preparing for a fight.

If a demon was on the loose, things were going to get ugly.

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You guys don't know how lucky you are to have this today. I managed to get my hands on a computer, and let me tell you, Internet here is so slow it took me nearly an hour to log in to post this. Happy? Itachi finally got his girl!

sekihan: rice with red beans in it. Served when there is something to celebrate, like an acceptation into a school or when people get engaged.


	59. Meetings

First of all, let me apologize for the lateness. This was a very hard chapter to write, for various reasons, and I even had to rewrite it. But it's finally done, and I'm satisfied with the result. Things are finally getting together. And much more mischief is yet to come, you'll see.

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Sakura had just finished examining one of the buildings that had been constructed during her absence. It was a tall building, strong and proud, which housed the various doctors, medics and nurses. She was quite happy to see that all of the rooms of the three levels were full. She ascertained that many of those stayed for more than six months to work at the village, surrounded by other talented members of the health department, to learn and exchange techniques of healing. According to Tohru, with her reappearance, the village would truly become a forum for all people of the medical profession.

She wasn't quite sure her presence alone would make that much of a difference, but she appreciated the thought.

She turned around, heading for the waterfall, beyond which she could sense many heat signatures. She longed to see the market that had temporarily been set up down there before it could be relocated to a better place.

At her side, Itachi tensed and put a hand on her arm to stop her.

"Sakura-sensei…something is coming from over there," he said, looking over the waterfall into the distance, where a point in the sky was gradually getting bigger.

"Aa…I sense it too," murmured the blind girl, without the sense of urgency he, and now everyone on the premises, seemed to feel.

Within moments, weapons flashed in most everyone's hands, and Itachi was no exception. This time, it was up to Sakura to put a hand on his arm in a calm manner to stop him.

"Don't," she intoned softly. "I recognize this chakra signature."

A smile appeared on her face, joyous and true as the gigantic form bearing so much chakra came closer and closer still. She stepped forward to greet the beast civilly, motioning for everyone to put their weapons away and return to their occupation.

"Nee, 'tis good to see you fare better, little one," came the mature voice of the newcomer as she landed in front of them gracefully, tucking her large wings close to her sides.

"Aa. I remember you from the river. You're the one who got me here. You have my most heartfelt thanks," said Sakura with a deep bow.

The beast inclined her great head with a smile.

"Hn…Thou art very much welcome, humanling. As this one thought, thou art a female with a very strong determination to live."

Sakura nodded once more.

"Great one, my name is Sakura. What is yours, if I may be so bold as to inquire as to the identity of my savior?" she asked formally, bowing her head to the ancient being.

"Thou may call me Machi, matriarch of the bats. Didst thou know, humanling, that thou were the first human to manage to find my realm?"

"This is flattering, Machi-sama, but it was merely a fluke. The seal that was supposed to transport me here was miscopied and sent me to your realm instead of here. It was just coincidence that we met."

The gigantic bat shook her head.

"When one gets to live as long as I have, one learns that coincidences do not exist. Our lives are all part of a great tapestry that is too big for us to see or even begin to comprehend. It is no mere fluke that let you, a blind human capable of sensing her surroundings, meet me, the Head of the bats."

"Then what—"

And of course, as things went, they had to be interrupted. By two of the most annoying—yet also adorable, but she would never tell them that—men in her life.

"Sakura-chan!"

"Chibi-sensei!"

"What's going on around here? Why's there a summon here?"

"Since when have you returned? And how did you manage to escape?"

Crowded by the two males who manhandled her, trying to see if she was truly alive and well, she felt her head swim.

_Too much information, need air. Now!_

"ARGH! Let me breathe, idiots!" she finally yelled in frustration, pushing them away from her. "And what are you even doing here? You two are going to shut up for a moment while I finish my discussion with my guest. Got it?" she asked—more like demanded, really—with as close to a glare as she could do without eyes. But she did lay heavily on the menacing frown, despite how much she was internally happy to see them.

Chastised, the two grown men crossed their arms on their chest and stood behind her, next to Itachi who greeted them with a nod.

"As I was saying, what do you want from me?" she asked the furry grey bat.

"I have watched the goings on of this world for a long time, especially since the one who manipulates the people of this world decided to become more active. One day soon, he may decide to use his eyes to open a portal to another dimension—mine, even."

"Wait…how do you know all that?" asked Sakura somewhat suspiciously. As far as she knew, Jiraiya was the only one besides her who had inkling as to what Madara was planning, and even he didn't know all that he could do with his sharingan.

"My people dwell in all kinds of dark places. And I have lived for so long I have seen the rise and fall of several civilizations. It would be a shame if this one ended all because of the ego of an unscrupulous man. We bats are not much of a warrior race, but we are swift and silent, and I have informants in all corners of the world. My people's lives are at stake as much as thine. Let us cooperate, little human. What sayest thee?"

The seriousness of the situation hit her like a ton of bricks. This could possibly give them the edge they needed.

"Alright."

"Good. I shall let thee sign my summoning scroll, but thou will need to come with me, little one. Though we aren't usually fighters, we bats have secret techniques too, and special ways to fight. If we are to fight together, thou will need to learn them too. Thou shall have to come with me."

The choice was excruciatingly difficult. On one hand, there were many things she needed to do now, before things started to go downhill, but on the other hand, she did need help from that ancient bat. No matter which path she chose, she would lose something.

"Alright," she said at length. "I will go with you, but at two conditions."

"Name them, young one," replied the old bat magnanimously.

"I need to take some measures here before I come with you. And I can't leave for an indeterminate amount of time without some means to contact people here. I want to be able to come back once in a while, if only for a short amount of time."

The gigantic grey beast considered this for a moment and cocked her head to the side.

"Very well," she conceded. "That doth sound reasonable. I shall come back in a fortnight. Until then, young one."

And she took off, creating a great gust of wind as her winds flapped close to the ground, before soaring through the sky, away from them, until her presence disappeared suddenly—presumably to return to her realm.

And then the three males rounded on her.

-:-

"Look, I know what I'm doing," she said, waving Jiraiya and Kisame off—they were the most insistent, but she knew that internally, Itachi wasn't thinking any less than them.

"You've only just come back—in a pretty bad shape if I may point out—and now you want to leave again? Think of yourself for once!" pleaded Jiraiya, following the pinkette as she headed back to the main house.

"I am doing just that, aren't I? I asked for some time before I went with Machi-sama so I can get up to date on what's happened during my absence and do some of the things I had planned on doing. I think I can get to work on Satsuki-chan's eyes a bit, but I'll take Orochimaru's journals with me when I leave, so I can continue to work on some theories. And then there's my younger self I have to see…And I should find a way to warn Gaara-kun that I'm alive before he goes on a rampage…So many things to do, and so few days to do them!"

Eventually, since she was rounding up her equipment, ready to go on full-on work mode, Jiraiya took her by her arms and promptly made her return to her bed.

"You, sit down now. Stop conveniently forgetting that you are still recovering," he said, embodying the father he was supposed to be.

"Oh, don't be such a mother hen. What doesn't kill me can only make me stronger. Besides, I'm old enough to know what is good for me and what isn't," she retorted with a frown.

"No matter how mature you may be, you are still but a young girl," replied Jiraiya with a mirrored frown.

This time, Sakura couldn't help but laugh heartily.

"Ah, jiji! If you knew!" she chuckled warmly, shaking her head. "But this is for later. There is something that interests me vastly more, and that is the reason why you two showed up together, when I know you severely dislike each other," she finished, accusingly.

Kisame and Jiraiya, who were sitting on either side of her futon and generally glaring at each other, winced.

"That's…a long story," muttered Kisame. "I…happened upon the mess you left behind, when you escaped Orochimaru's clutches. I let my rage get the better of me when that bastard's clone gloated that he had done all that with our leader's permission. I would have killed him, had he been flesh and blood. I was looking for him, looking for you, when my path crossed that guy's," he said, pointing to Jiraiya.

"Right. He told me he quit the organization," added Jiraiya helpfully.

She nearly choked at these news. For one, that wasn't expected, as it hadn't happened in her time. And she just couldn't see that happening. Kisame was a man of honour, one who had killed for his ideals. She could not believe that he would deny the path he had taken. It just wasn't in his nature. Unless…

"That cannot be. It's impossible for you. So you are lying."

The blue man frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I am _not_," he said firmly.

"Then you must not be Hoshigaki-san, but rather another member of that organization. Zetsu-san, isn't it? The one who can transform into another person, imitate him down to the chakra signature," she accused softly. If it indeed was him…

"Hell, chibi-sensei, do you really not believe me?" asked Kisame, unmoving. "Why would I be that Zetsu, if I didn't even know you would be here?"

"Right…But I still need to verify if you truly are the Kisame I know. What happened to your shirt when we fought here?"

A small smirk appeared on his face at that. He did remember very well that she had turned into a grown woman and that he had given her his shirt to cover herself.

"I gave it to you so you could cover yourself, 'cause you had suddenly turned into an adult version of yourself."

"…Right," she coughed as both Itachi and Jiraiya turned inquisitive stares in her direction. "Alright, I'll believe that you are Hoshigaki-san. But I can't fathom _why_ you would leave your organization."

There was suddenly an uncomfortable silence in the room, and Kisame pointedly looked away from her as he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

Finally, it was Itachi who spoke, rather reluctantly and as though he was the only one who would speak in quite a while to come.

"Isn't it obvious?"

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Machi: ten thousand thousand (denotes a long life)


	60. Male Pride

And a new chapter, as promised. This was as easy to write as the last one was hard to, if you can believe it. I'm in a very good mood. And, since I haven't done so for a while, I've included an omake. I hope you enjoy it!

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"Impossible," said Sakura once she regained her wits about her. She turned to Kisame, who continued to studiously look away from her. She could not believe it. "Impossible." Not from him.

And all of the males remained silent, refusing to look at her as the silence grew uncomfortable.

"Come on, Hoshigaki-san, say something! Deny it!" pleaded Sakura, grabbing Kisame's forearm with a bandaged hand.

The nuke-nin refrained from saying anything for a moment, then covered her small hand with his much larger one. "I can't."

She remained dumbstruck for a while, words refusing to come to her. Seeing that she didn't know what to say, Kisame gathered her small form and made her sit on his knees, leaning against his chest. Somehow, even though she could sense him, if she wasn't turned in his direction, it made things less awkward for him.

"For nuke-nin, to find someone around which they can relax, feel completely at ease with. Someone who isn't afraid of them and dares to tell things as they are, without restraint. You were that person for me, chibi-sensei. And then you disappeared, and I realized that returning to the life I had before I met you horrified me. I was forced to look at my life, at myself, and the loneliness really got to me. And the one who took you away was the one I was following. I couldn't bear it, and I wondered why your disappearance affected me so much."

Then Sakura realized why Jiraiya had stayed silent for so long. Blood dripped down his chin from where he had bitten down harshly on it throughout Kisame's speech, and his hands were clenched so hard they were shaking as he cried out, "You lolicon! You won't have my daughter, you beast!" and lunged at the nuke-nin.

She yelped as Kisame hugged her close to his body and ducked, rolling over carefully to shield her as Jiraiya went sailing past him.

"You…" growled Jiraiya darkly, forbiddingly, as Kisame crouched, hugging Sakura close like a teddy bear and shook his head.

"Woah, watch out for the girl!" reproached Kisame, still on his guard as he noticed Jiraiya looked as tense as before and his glare became even darker. The pointed look the white-haired man directed at his arms, where they encircled Sakura, was frigid. In response, he hugged her a little tighter and resisted the urge to creep back in defense. "And watch your words! I'm not a lolicon! I don't get hot over little girls and I certainly won't lay a hand on chibi-sensei like some kind of pervert!"

"Bastard…"

The two males were stopped by the only female in the room, as she asked quietly, from within the confines of the buff man's arms, "How can you say you like me, knowing almost nothing about me? Are you sure you aren't in love with an illusion of myself?"

"I may not know much about you, but what I know is how you act, and what I've seen and heard only made me want to know more about you. Isn't that a good thing? That I want to see you every day, to discover every facet of you, and be amazed every time you surprise me?"

"Eeeeeh…"

Itachi, who hadn't spoken yet out of respect more than good will, finally spoke calmly.

"Hoshigaki-san, Sakura-sensei has already agreed to a tentative relationship with me. As thus, she is unavailable for a relationship with you."

As though parroting Sakura, Jiraiya, taken aback, let out a long "Eeeeeh?" of confusion.

"When did this happen?" asked Jiraiya, eyes wide.

"Only just recently," replied Itachi.

Sakura felt her heart sink down in anticipation. Somehow, she sensed that things could, so very easily, take a turn for the worse, with three strong ninja in the same room.

"There are men who have several wives, and manage to love them all. A heart is an organ that can expand, as has been proven before. If women can learn to share a man, how can men not learn to do the same for a woman? I, for one, am plenty able to do so. What about you, young Uchiha?" asked Kisame, openly challenging.

And of course, the traditional Uchiha pride had to choose this moment to rear its ugly head.

"Of course I can!" retorted Itachi hotly, realizing only when a shark grin appeared on Kisame's face that he had been well and truly had.

Groaning, Sakura rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly.

_Great…Why are all men such proud fools?_

-:-

Of course, not all men were as proud as Kisame and Itachi, but the two of them had pride in spades, which meant that they would die before going back on their word.

"Sensei, did you just agree to having two boyfriends?" asked Tohru, eyeing Sakura as she headed to her younger self's room.

She almost face planted.

"Heeeeeell…" She sighed, feeling tired of being asked the same question over and over again. "I didn't get a chance to voice _my_ opinion. Why do people always act like they know better than me what's good for me? Besides, why are they so interested in me?...Never mind, I'm going to start saying stupid stuff."

"Well, at least you seem like you're getting used to it," remarked Tohru.

"Riiiiiight…More like, wearing me down? Those damn sly bastards…"

Despite her words, there was no bite in her tone; Tohru smiled to himself. No matter how much she may deny it, she did like Itachi and Kisame. And he remembered that his mother had said for years that the annoying ones were the most dangerous. After all, she had ended up marrying the most annoying one of them all—his father.

"But you do like them. I've seen you around them, you know. Be they alone with you or together. And I've never seen you as relaxed and open as when you are with them."

Before she could answer, they noticed they were at the young Sakura's door, which kept Sakura from answering as Tohru opened the shoji door, revealing the overjoyed pinkette inside.

"Nee-sama!"

She twirled to the side as her younger self went flying past her, deftly avoiding the hug that would have killed her.

"Whoa! Watch out for the physical contact there!" she warned gently.

The young pinkette looked abashed, rubbing her arms.

"Right. I remember. Do you feel better now? Are you healed now?"

"Not…completely," replied the blind girl, "but I'm feeling much better. How about you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine! Though I miss my parents…" trailed off the younger female.

"Don't worry, you'll see them soon, since I'm alright now and both Morino-san and Yamanaka-san have seen it," assured the medic with a heartfelt smile. "This time, the trip back to Konoha should be quite interesting."

"Eh? Will you be coming too?"

"Hai. I've got business there, so I'll be travelling with you."

"Awesome! When are we leaving?"

-:-

Explaining, once she got Kisame and Jiraiya's vow of secrecy, that she was not quite the one she seemed, was a quiet affair. However, upon learning that she was closer to his age than Itachi's, Kisame oftentimes took the opportunity to poke fun at the Uchiha for it. Covertly, of course.

And the trip back to Konoha was no exception.

"Why are you even coming?" asked Jiraiya in a mock whisper, fed up with the whispers and silent petulancy exchanged between Kisame and Itachi, glaring at the nuke-nin. You won't be able to enter Konoha anyway."

"I've only just found chibi-sensei, no way am I letting her out of my sight," retorted the blue man, pointedly toying with his shirt. It irked Jiraiya that the medical village insignia had been sewn onto it. In fact, pretty much everything related to the blue man irked him, and none more than the fact that he had Sakura's favour. He merely ground his teeth.

"Besides, we will be in need of his strength soon, unless I am very much mistaken," murmured Sakura pensively, getting many curious looks from her companions in the process.

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Ibiki suspiciously.

"There is a bug that will most surely move against me once we near Hi no Kuni. The veil of secrecy will not save him this time."

And as a group of Anbu appeared before them, she allowed herself a secretive smile.

_Get time, I won't be taken down so easily!_

-:-

Omake

The shopkeeper looked at the newcomer suspiciously. The child, dressed in a grey sleeveless hoodie and black capri pants, looked out of place in the drugstore. And she couldn't see much of the child's face, since it was covered by both the hoodie and a suspicious pair of large black sunglasses.

She observed the child carefully, looking for any signs of theft. That child was certainly up to no good. That she was sure of. After all, even if that young one's hands were hidden in the hoodie's front pocket, she was sure they would soon grab products off the shelves and hide them in that large pocket.

Clack, clack, clack, went the child's geta on the wooden floor.

As the child turned to face an aisle, she got a glimpse of a girlish face framed by black locks as the girl—at least now she knew it was a girl—took a hand, bandaged up to her elbow, out of her hoodie's pocket and lightly skimmed across the various products. But then she was forced to look away as two customers entered the store, both of them special in their own way. The shorter male was a sight for sore eyes, especially in a town as bereft of beauties as the one she lived in, while the taller of the two was quite possibly the scariest person she had ever seen. Large, tall, and _blue_ of all colours, he towered over the other customers in the store dangerously.

If that wasn't enough to rouse her curiosity—and her unease—the two quickly went to the girl's side.

"Have you found it? You've been in here for a while already," said the blue man with a grin that showed pointy teeth, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Shhhh! I'm here incognito, remember? Besides, give me a break already," groused the girl, "you know how hard it is to find pink hair dye, let alone some suitable one."

"Yeah, and hilarious, too," replied the man, mirth dancing in his eyes.

"You're having _way_ too much fun with this," drawled the girl with a slap on his forearm.

"Should your hair be black or back to its original pink colour, it shall be no less beautiful," said the long-haired male smoothly, as though used to handing out praise.

The girl's cheeks rosined as she retorted that she hated her fake black hair, shown ostensibly by her pink roots and couldn't wait to have her pink hair back, if only thanks to some dye.

Moments later, the trio stopped at the counter, arms full of various dyes of varied pink shades. Actually, she had never thought that she would manage to sell that many of them—her boss, an old spinster, was way too fond of the colour compared to how much profit they could make from it.

Well, she wouldn't say anything. If only she could be sure they hadn't stolen anything…

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Alright, I know that this is short, but this seemed like a good place to end it. And, after all, this is the second chapter I've posted this week, isn't it?

Geta: garden shoes similar to flip-flops


	61. How to Fight

Hello, everyone! Thanks for your reviews! I'd like to first point out that this story will NOT turn into a harem fic, and that I don't intend for Sakura to come off as a slut. As for those of you who couldn't see Kisame being interested in her, I'll say this: it's normal. He's just had a big revelation, and I haven't expanded that much on him, though I did try to put in some cues. Anyway. Here goes an action-packed chapter!

As a last note, I'd like to thank tickledorteen, who kindly did some fanart for this story. I really appreciate it. If anyone else wants to do some, I'd be more than happy! For now, here's the link, which you can also find in my profile: ./art/Blind-and-Unseeing-Fanart-281062175

Sakura was glad that none of the people she travelled with were inexperienced genin, for the ANBU that attacked them were cold and efficient. Clearly, their goal was to exterminate them, no questions asked, no matter who they were. After all, Ibiki and Inoichi were known Konoha ninja, and Jiraiya himself was a Sannin. And yet, despite this, the ANBU still attacked them. And they were not ninja from another hidden village, that much they all knew.

_ROOT…_

Nothing she didn't expect, really. And she had to admit that it was a clever tactic. As they were not yet in Hi no Kuni, any suspicions would not lie on Konoha ninja's shoulders, but rather on those of the people of this land. If their bodies were found at all. Inner politics were not to be taken lightly.

Sakura had confidence that everyone could handle themselves. Everyone, except her younger self. And therein lay the problem. She couldn't ask anyone to shield her, for they would be busy enough with their own fights. But she couldn't protect her either, for she was quite certainly the primary target and the reason for the battle that was about to take place. Still…If her younger self came to harm because of her, she could never forgive herself. And that was certainly what would happen, for if the young girl had been used once against her, she could be used again.

She gnashed her teeth for but a moment before a thought came to her. If she could lure them away…

And since the best defence was offense…

"I've been waiting for you guys," she said, and launched at them, meeting them head on.

She may not be as physically fit as she had once been, thanks to months of incarceration and illness, but she wasn't completely useless, either. And she had the advantage of being a medic-nin, which meant that she knew exactly where to hit to ensure a maximum of damage.

_Never let it be said that medic-nin don't know how to fight dirtyNever let it be said that medic-nin don't know how to fight dirty_, she thought as she created chakra scalpels and sliced at the first ANBU she came across. He jumped out of the way, but not fast enough that her scalpels didn't leave deep gouges into his armour.

While she engaged a combat with him, his teammates streaked past her to face her fellow travellers. She thought, for a moment, that things would not be so bad—after all, those ANBU were outnumbered—but then she felt another group approach them from behind. And they hid their chakra, which meant that without her sensory jutsu, she would not have sensed them.

"Guys, look out! There's another group coming from behind!" she warned, dodging a roundhouse kick from the man she was fighting.

_Damn it, guess I won't be able to lure them away after all…_

She somersaulted to avoid another kick, throwing a volley of senbon at her opponent while she did so. None of them hit, but she took the moment he used to deflect them to dash forward, quickly closing the distance between the two of them. Hearing his ribs break under her fists was satisfying, but it didn't slow the man down as much as she would have hoped.

_Hmm…I'll need something better than that to incapacitate him_, she thought, dodging a series of kunai jabs. She allowed herself to concentrate on her surroundings and noticed that among the confusion of the different battles, her younger self had remained alone, unprotected against any and all stray weapons. Though she wasn't involved in a fight, she could still be hurt inadvertently. Or she could be used as a hostage.

_This isn't good._

-:-

Sakura trembled, looking around wildly. She huddled against a tree, trying to make herself as small a target as possible.

"Kyaa!"

Eyes wide, she stared at a spot inches from her right shoulder, where a kunai had buried deep in the bark of the tree, sending small slivers of wood flying around. She put her arms around her legs, rocking back and forth, and bit down harshly on her lower lip to keep from whimpering.

This was scary!

Everyone moved so fast they were just blurs—how did they manage to do that? It didn't seem humanly possible…

She wanted to be home, with her parents, and drink hot chocolate…

Suddenly, she was pulled harshly to the side with a yank. Flailing about, she landed on her side, bruising her flank. Shaking her head, she looked around, first noticing that something had been attached to her arm.

Something clicked in her mind. Her head snapped up, and her eyes landed on the only other female with pink hair. Sure enough, the other end of the dissolving thread—chakra string? It didn't look like normal ninja wire….—was in her hand. Gaping, she looked back to the spot where she had been moments before, and felt her heart sink down when she saw the line of embedded kunai making a nice diagonal line where her torso would have been. Chills ran down her spine as she realized that she could very well have been bleeding to death right now, and would have been, if she hadn't been yanked to the side.

_Someone save me! Please let it end soon!_

-:-

Itachi activated his Mangekyou sharingan. While he could see and copy his opponent's moves with his normal sharingan, he wanted this battle to end quickly.

Now, if that ANBU would only look into his eyes…

_It would be better for you to look into my eyes…for if you don't, I'll be burning you alive!_

If possible, he didn't want to have to kill a member of his village, but if worst came to worst, he would not hesitate to kill his opponent.

Black flames consumed the ground where the ANBU had been standing, forcing the latter to jump back. The grown up man swiftly darted between trees, forcing the young Uchiha to follow him lest he lose him. Clearly, he preferred to fight elsewhere, not having to watch his back at all time for stray weapons or jutsu. Well, that suited Itachi just fine. He could take advantage of that.

Further ahead, a large pile of rocks stood out starkly against the forest background. And, with it, came an opportunity for the young ninja.

_Let's see you escape out of that one._

Hands coming together, they ran through signs so fast it barely took him a moment to form the last one and send a gigantic fireball at the group of boulders. Right in front of the ANBU.

Hit by the massive ball of fire, the boulders shattered to pieces, effectively showering the ANBU with white-hot burning shrapnel.

Instantly, Itachi darted to the side, taking cover behind an outcrop of trees. He waited only long enough for the rain of burning projectiles to stop; he had a man to take down, after all.

Still, the ANBU was more resilient than he would have thought. He had managed to erect an earth wall to protect himself, but it was clear to Itachi that he had been a second too late; tears mottled his suit, revealing charred, bruised flesh underneath.

_Now!_

His eyes burned red, and this time, black flames appeared on the ground, forming a perfect circle around the man. Still, the ANBU was not out for the count. He quickly created another wall of earth and jumped on it to escape the unforgiving black flames. Crouching, he sent a volley of kunai at the young Uchiha, hoping to buy some time, but Itachi deflected or dodged them and took the opportunity to get closer to the man. His hand went straight to his weapons pouch and closed around a handful of exploding tags.

_This time I've got you!_

He stuck the exploding tags to a bunch of kunai and sent them at the man, expecting them to be deflected or dodged. As he thought, most of them landed uselessly on the ground, but a few of them struck the earth wall.

"Kai!"

The explosion created several deep holes in the wall, obliterating part of it and thus destabilizing the ANBU as it started to crumble.

_One last push!_

The man attempted to jump backward, only to realize that he was heading straight for a sea of black flames.

"Amaterasu is faster than you," murmured Itachi as he watched the man flail around in the flames.

Having anticipated that the ANBU would jump backward if he faced him frontally—sideway dashes were less probable, as they were not moves ingrained as deep in someone's muscular memory as frontal or backward jumps—it was really a simple matter to make his black flames grew large, fed by the surroundings. And then to force the ANBU to jump straight into them.

"I am an ANBU too, anonymous foe. You should have taken that into consideration," he murmured, turning away from the writhing mass of flesh.

-:-

Kisame liked fights. He liked the feeling of adrenaline running through his body, of blood soaking his clothes and permeating the very air he smelled, of screams and tears alike. Fighting meant to live and to live meant to fight. But he didn't like to fight hindered by anything, be it people or unnecessary baggage.

And it just so happened that he had some unnecessary baggage.

"Oi, girl!" he yelled, and threw his bundle at her. _Now_ he could finally enjoy this fight, instead of just jumping around and partaking in a taijutsu spar.

He grinned.

_This is going to be enjoyable._

-:-

Sakura was glad nothing life-threatening had happened to her since the incident of the forceful yank. She hadn't moved since then, however, too afraid to do anything more than try to plaster herself to the large roots of the tree.

She looked up, however, when a cry startled her—just in time, in fact, to receive a wrapped package straight to the stomach.

She doubled over, coughing; the package rolled aside, flopped to the ground, and revealed its contents.

And it horrified her.

"I…!"

She scrambled backwards, but the rough bark of the tree kept her from getting further away from the package. And the cloth was sliding further away, revealing silver strands caked with a suspicious brownish substance, a substance she was quite sure she could identify, and then an ear, and a nose appeared, and finally the cloth pooled on the ground, and a gagged head was revealed to her horrified eyes.

And that head stared right back at her with deep purple eyes.

She tentatively pushed the head away with the tip of her foot, closing her eyes and averting her face. She trembled as her foot made contact with the severed head, and jumped when a muffled sound came from it. Instantly, her eyes opened and her head snapped back to look at the uncovered human head.

Once more, she heard that muffled sound, and this time, she saw the gag move slightly. She blinked, confused and completely entranced by the slight darkening of the cloth—saliva? Impossible. But still…

She crawled forward and lifted a trembling hand to the head, but stopped before actually touching it. It disgusted her, but it also frightened her. And, more than that, it fascinated her—which, in the back of her mind, she realized wasn't healthy.

She kneeled and, with a deep breath, took the head in both hands. Before she could change her mind, she ripped the gag off in one swift move.

"'Bout time, bitch! How long did you intend to let me rot in that fucking bag?"

With an "EEP!" she let the head fall, surprised. It fell with a sickening "thunk" and rolled a small ways away, cursing colourfully all the while.

"What the hell's the matter with you, bitch? Never seen a fuckin' head talk?" yelled the head, sneering, fixing her with a glare the best it could from the way it was lodged between a root and a rock.

She found herself unable to reply, struck dumb by the whole situation.

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Had any fun? There's still more goodness to come!

Review, please! I'm so bad at fighting scenes (though I'm satisfied with the ones I managed to write this time around) that any constructive criticism would be really appreciated! (By the way, if you ask me a question in a review, make sure I can actually answer it. Some of you don't allow PMs)


	62. Disrupting a Fight

Fun, fun, fun! I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I think it'll show, too. Some things get weaved in this, if you can spot the signs. If not, you'll have to wait for future updates! Thanks for the reviews, everyone, and enjoy!

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Kisame landed a kick to his opponent's stomach, sending the other man flying. As it was, he disrupted another fight, that one between Jiraiya and a spiky-haired kunoichi. As he swung his sword in a circle, both the kunoichi and Jiraiya wisely jumped out of the way.

"Watch out where you're throwing your trash!" yelled Jiraiya at the nuke-nin, bodily refraining from giving the blue man a bloody nose.

"Seems to me like you still managed to get out of the way fast enough on your ancient legs," taunted Kisame, bringing down his sword like a hammer at his opponent who, luckily for him, managed to scramble out of the way before being hacked in two.

Snorting angrily, Jiraiya decided not to dignify the tall man with a response and instead turned his back on him to concentrate on his own opponent. And not a moment too soon, either, for the woman was about to land a swift kick to his head. He ducked, cursing inwardly that the standard ANBU uniform didn't include a miniskirt for females, as he would have caught a glimpse at her underwear. Frills, lace? Maybe a little skimpy thing, black and sexy?

"Damn…no chance to take a peak…" he grumbled discontentedly.

He almost chanced a glance at his daughter—hell yes, even if they weren't really related by blood, she still was and always would be his daughter—in fear that she could have read his mind like she seemed so prone to doing at times and would have been ready to send him flying with a kick of her own to the head. But he didn't. Now was not the time to get distracted, especially on his own.

The kunoichi, undaunted, tried again and came at him with a naginata. He jumped backward to get out of the range of her weapon and was carried off by a sudden wave.

"What the hell?" he spluttered, fighting against the large amount of water that shouldn't have been there. "Hoshigaki! When I'm done with the gal, I'm coming to kick your ass! I'm gonna kill you, you hear?"

"Why do you always get in the way, old man?" replied Kisame with a rude gesture at the white-haired man.

"Roooooh, watch your back! I'm gonna get you when Sakura-chan isn't looking!" promised Jiraiya darkly.

"I'm looking forward to it, old-timer!"

-:-

While Jiraiya and Kisame were exchanging deprecating insults at each other across the battlefield, a young Sakura remained fixated on a certain talking head. A _severed_ head. And as if that wasn't strange enough, said talking head was berating her for being surprised.

"Y-You know, most people would be surprised at seeing a head talking," she pointed out rather defensively. "Your spine is showing!" she exclaimed, lifting the head higher to peer at the neck critically with her head tilted to the side. Curiosity overtook her fright and surprise, and she poked at the white bones peeking from the neck. "Do you feel that?" she asked curiously, speculating calmly.

"Of course I do, bitch! That's my neck, remember?" cursed the lone head.

"Eeeeeh…How interesting…" she murmured, poking the spine once more, much to the head's displeasure. "Ne, Atama-kun, don't you have a body?"

"Che! What are you, dumb? Of course I have a fucking body!" snarled the head angrily. "And don't you fucking call me 'Atama-kun or I swear I'll bite your fingers off!"

"Eh? Then…Atama-san?" she tried timidly, nibbling on her lower lip. She cringed at the positively flaming look he gave her.

"No 'Atama-anything'! Niet! Nada! My name's Hidan, bitch, learn to use it!"

"Hidan…Ne, how did you lose your body? Did a ghost steal it?" asked the young girl innocently, further fuelling the immortal's ire.

"Damn, girl, you're really stupid! Isn't it obvious that my head was cut off? That blue bastard hid my body and since then, he won't leave me alone!"

"Eeeeeh…But why would he hide your body, Hidan-kun? Isn't that bad of him?" she said, eyes wide in innocent confusion.

"What the fuck do you expect? He's a fucking nuke-nin! What are your eyes for? Didn't you spot the gash on his hitai-ate?"

"But…even though he seems like a scary onii-san, he was really nice to me…" she trailed off pensively. "And nee-sama seems to really like him, so he can't be all that bad…so you must have done something to make him mad at you, Hidan-kun!" she said accusingly, proud of her deduction.

He looked away, grinding his teeth angrily to keep from cursing out loud.

_That girl…!_

"So that's why, you should apologize, right?" she said with a sincere smile.

He almost choked. "Ap—Are you fucking crazy?" he exclaimed, face reddening. "Did you forget the man carries my head in his baggage? That kind of man…I'll never apologize to him!"

"Eeeh…But okaa-san says that unless you apologize, you can't go back to being friends with someone, 'cause there'll be dis-satis-fac-tion left between them," said the child, enunciating clearly the word she did not fully understand.

Tsking, Hidan clearly kept his mouth shut, refusing to keep talking to the annoying girl. And it was very hard to do, especially since, having nothing better to do, she returned to poking him to get a reaction out of him.

-:-

Inoichi and Ibiki teamed up to take care of their opponents. For someone like Inoichi, who could take control of someone's body, but leave his own body vulnerable, it was a great help to be able to depend on someone during that vulnerable moment.

Actually, incapacitating his opponent by forcing him to plunge a kunai in both of his thighs proved relatively easily—cuts and bruises were not unexpected nor unusual—and it seemed Ibiki didn't have much trouble in keeping his body from being riddled with senbon by his own opponent. Of course, after that, taking down the other shinobi had been relatively easy. He suspected that if Ibiki hadn't helped him paralyze his own opponent to allow him to take over his movements, the battle would have dragged on much longer.

After that, tying down the two incapacitated men was easy—making sure they wouldn't commit suicide wasn't such an easy matter, on the other hand. And though Ibiki tried a summary interrogation, he got nothing out of them.

"It seems we'll have to wait until we're back in Konoha before we try to get more answers out of them," noted Inoichi.

"Aah. Come on, let's help the others, they're outnumbered."

-:-

Sakura frowned unhappily. At first, she had had only one man to fight, but since the other group of ninja had come, she now had two of them to take care of. And she wasn't in top shape, either, which put her at a disadvantage against the two ANBU-level ninja.

Fortunately, one of them had a set of cracked ribs already. That made it easier for her to defend herself, but it was not good enough. After getting a couple of scratches, she decided that she had had enough of playing on the defensive.

_Damn short limbs…_

Irritated, she punched the ground, and used their moment of instability to shorten the distance between her and the injured man. He countered the first blow she attempted, leaving his left side open, and was thus vulnerable to her second blow. She felt her chakra scalpels dig deep in the man's shoulder, saw blood well on his clothes and gush through his cut armour in bright flowing rivers, and stepped away as he collapsed, hacking blood.

Instantly, she ducked under her second opponent's kick. He sailed past her, stuck to the trunk of a nearby tree, and jumped back at her, hands moving in preparation for a jutsu.

She didn't give him enough time to do it. In an instant she was on him, hand glowing with chakra. She winced as she made contact with his armour and the shock reverberated in her still healing hand, but a smile appeared on her face as he plummeted to the ground. She followed him down, landed where he would have been, had he not rolled aside, and kneed the ground harshly. Cracks appeared, but since she let most of her chakra flow out upon realizing the man had rolled away and she wouldn't be hitting him, it didn't get totally destroyed. Before the now crouching man could jump back, she swept out his legs from under him and elbowed him hard in the side. In turn, he backhanded her, and for one moment, her world spun dizzyingly.

She quickly regained her senses, but the sluggishness she felt did not abate.

_That slap…Kami-sama, I feel so dizzy…_

Fighting against the bile that was rising in her throat, she moved away from the man, evading a blow. Yet pain bloomed in her right leg as she crouched on the ground further away.

_What the—? I clearly evaded that blow, so why?_

She did not have time to ponder more deeply about it, however, since the man came back at her with a vengeance, swinging a heavy chain around. That alone wouldn't have frightened her, but she made a mental note to avoid the spiky ball attached at the end.

_One hit and my ribs are toast._

And she already had the disadvantage of having shorter limbs, too. Well, jutsu existed for a reason, right? Besides, she could always use a certain trick she had pulled off to keep her younger self from being skewered.

A sadistic grin appeared on her face.

_I, too, have tricks up my sleeve. Let's see you react to that_, she thought as she evaded the ball and chain. Only to double over in pain.

_The hell? Again? Impossible!_

This time, too, she was certain she had evaded the blow. Yet she still had been hurt as though she had taken it face on.

_Wait…Oh, you sneaky bastard…_

"KAI!"

And the world righted itself. The pain remained, but she didn't feel dizzy like before, as she thought would happen.

"Clever…a blow to the head to disorient me before using a genjutsu during my time of dizziness to slightly change my perception of the world around me…As I thought, you were well informed…"

_But now that I dispelled your genjutsu, it's my time to go on the offensive._

The spiky ball came at her again—she evaded it by sidestepping aside—but with a tug from her opponent, the chain curved, sending the ball at her again with a whiplash. She didn't have much time to react, but, instead of evading the blow, stuck to the ball with chakra and let it direct her straight back at the annoying man. Before coming in contact with his outstretched foot, she swung down from the ball, using chakra strings, and propelled toward him, feet first.

With a mighty crack, her feet met the underside of his jaw, breaking it cleanly and sending bolts of pain through the male's head.

As he teared up, she swiftly decked him over the head with a chakra-laced punch. As he slumped to the ground, unconscious, she took some time to check on the situation of the rest of her comrades.

And what she saw disgusted her.

-:-

When one woman became two, Jiraiya grinned lecherously. However, the second one was as cold and unfeeling as the first one. So he decided to have a bit of harmless fun.

"Come on, ladies, show me your faces! I'm sure you're beautiful under those masks!" he attempted, only to be answered with a kick and a stab.

"Hey! Don't be like that! I'm all for love! And if possible, I don't want to hurt ladies! I know. Lay down your weapons and I'll forget this battle ever happened, alright?" he smooth-talked. "Better yet, what do you say the three of us use that tension and put it to good use in bed, hm? I swear my stamina wouldn't lose to that of a twenty-year-old man!"

Once more, he was answered only with violence, which pained his loving heart.

And then there was physical violence.

"Hey, you perverted old-timer! Stop flirting around with girls forty years your juniors!"

Maybe he was secretly masochistic, but the sound of Sakura's voice put a sincere smile on his face.

"Just let me grope a boob or two, and I swear I'll be serious!"

Hey, any red-blooded male needed to see female forms once in a while, right?

Apparently, any red-blooded male also received a shoe thrown at their head for thinking so.

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Aaaaah, so much fun! Well, this battle is almost finished, so then it'll be back to politics in Konoha!

Naginata: a lance with a curved blade attached at the end. Traditionally a woman's weapon

Atama: head


	63. Heavy Changes

Hello, y'all! Enjoy this new chapter! By popular demand, you get more Hidan/younger Sakura interaction. What can I say, I do like to make you happy. (Alright, I like to write them too, so it's not completely selfless of me…) Enjoy!

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There were many a thing Jiraiya had done in the past that had made women throw various (pointy) things at him. Even now, he couldn't remember the number of times kunoichi had thrown kunai at him when they caught him peeping on them. And even civilians tended to throw things at him—mostly water buckets, since that was usually what they had on hand in the public bath. Still, shoes were also a favourite of women, it seemed, but that was only when he groped them in a public place and escaped too fast for them to follow.

Yet this time, he wasn't even running away, and not from a civilian, either. So why did he get a shoe chucked at him instead of a good old regular kunai?

"Why?" he asked in anguish.

A growl from hell answered him. And the vision that greeted him was no less hellish.

"Youuuu…"

Were that purple flames around the girl or was he just imagining them? That heavy atmosphere swirling around her…yep, a perfect channelization of Tsunade-hime.

And so he retreated to his old habits, used whenever dealing with an angry busty blonde.

"Ah…Sakura-chan…I…" he flustered, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. He evaded a kick and brought his hands together, as if praying, and proceeded to beg for forgiveness. Somehow, he managed to evade all the attacks that came his way, but whether that was because he was skilled or lucky was another matter.

"Geez, you lecher…" grounded out the medic, shaking her head in disbelief. "Why can't you ever be serious..."

Instead of continuing to feel aggravated at him, she turned away, and incidentally put herself straight in the path of a fire jutsu. She eeped mentally, her legs tensing in preparation for a jump that would get her safely out of harm's way. Something grabbed her middle, and suddenly, her feet left the ground in a swoop.

A jet of water countered the flames, and a warm voice asked from above her, "Chibi-sensei, watch out, ne? What would we do if you got hurt?"

"Hoshigaki-san!" she gasped, tucked under his arm, arms and legs dangling comically like a doll.

"Hang on," he said, and with one swift move, put her on his shoulders like a sack of rice.

She drummed on his back with small fists until he let her go, and then quickly managed to change her position so that she was now sitting on his shoulders—and tried to overlook the fact that they looked like a father and daughter. While Kisame continued to fight, she stayed firmly anchored on his shoulders and began to weave a web of chakra strings.

-:-

Jiraiya kicked—gently, for after all, he was fighting women—one of the kunoichi in the ribs and sent her flying straight toward some of the chakra strings. As soon as she touched them, her limbs started to move without her consent, and she became a prime target for the Sannin.

As soon as she was tied up properly—though what was proper to him and what was proper to others may differ greatly—he looked up to see that Sakura was reeling in the other kunoichi with another bunch of chakra strings. Despite how much she struggled against them, it seemed it was her fate to succumb to them, and she soon was unconscious and wrapped in a mass of ninja wire. She looked like a caterpillar still wrapped in its cocoon; he preferred the way he had tied the other one—it emphasized the woman's breasts, which he could now see because he had divested her of her armour at some point during the fight.

Sakura nodded to him then turned away to pay attention to the fight she was involved in. From her spot atop Kisame's shoulders, she sent wave after wave of jutsu at the only remaining opponent. Thus, Kisame let her distract the male with her jutsu and had his fun with Samehada.

Yeah, men and big swords…

As soon as the masked man was down, she whispered in Kisame's ear, "Ne, do you have something to compensate for?" and singlehandedly managed to sweep his legs out from under him without even landing a blow on him. Whistling mischievously, she jumped down from his shoulders and strolled toward Jiraiya while Kisame spluttered and cursed on the ground.

The Sannin glanced at the ex-Akatsuki and nodded a nod that meant that for now, since he had saved Sakura, he would not kill him. For now. Then he smiled largely at the approaching girl.

"Sakura-chan!" he exclaimed joyfully, to hide his embarrassment at being caught perving on females during a fight, and held up a single geta by a finger. She snatched it from him with a frown, clocked him on the head with it, and moved on with a rueful smile.

"Don't grope them while I'm gone," she murmured, patting him on the shoulder.

As she was heading for the forest—a part that was still miraculously untouched—Itachi came out of it, carrying what had once been a human.

"I'm sorry for giving you more trouble, sensei, but this man needs to be stabilized. I am sorry. It seems I need more training."

Her head snapped up in surprise.

"Eh?" she asked eloquently.

"I should have stopped him more cleanly and been able to avoid giving you more trouble. I am deeply sorry."

Hands glowing green, she set to work, smiling ruefully at the young Uchiha who looked, to a person who knew him as well as she did, rather disappointed with himself. "But you still brought him back alive. Isn't that because you knew I prefer not to kill if I can help it?"

Apparently, seeing her smile gently at him eased the young boy, for his tense shoulders relaxed somewhat; they didn't relax completely until Sakura announced that the male would live.

"You're a good guy, Itachi-kun. Don't forget that," she told him gently, working on clearing the lungs of the mass of flesh. "Hmm…Looks like I'll have to ask Akawa-san to send someone to Konoha to help the medics to heal that guy. At the very least, they'll need help for his skin."

Somehow, Ibiki appeared next to her at that moment and, bending to look at the humanoid form, observed, "Hokage-sama will want them all interrogated. To have enemies disguise themselves as Konoha ANBU…"

"I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that, Morino-san. You see, these guys are from Konoha."

"With all due respect, sensei, that doesn't make sense."

"These guys…they're not all to blame. They've been brainwashed from their childhood. Orphans that no one will miss…If some of them disappear, who's going to look for them? Especially after the Kyuubi attack…Many people must have gone missing, never to be found."

"Such a thing doesn't exist in Konoha," objected Morino, "or I would know about it. Anything dirty that goes on in the village I hear about, due to my job. And such a thing was never even mentioned to me."

With a little humourless laugh, she cocked her head to the side and tapped bloody fingers on her chin. "It does exist, that place. That's where I was kept at the beginning of my imprisonment, before I was kidnapped by another person. Just because the Hokage doesn't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

By now, Inoichi had approached too, and whispered, "But if such a thing is kept from Hokage-sama, it's tantamount to a crime of insubordination!"

"Iie…More than that, it is treasonous," replied Ibiki, "and punishable by death."

And then, something occurred to him, and his eyes widened.

"Yeah," affirmed Sakura with a nod. "That person doesn't have a choice anymore. There were too many people in my village, and now, the closer we get to Konoha, the more he is going to feel threatened and cornered, since he knows I know his identity and I'm not going to lay low after all he did to me."

And now they understood why they had all felt more and more urgency coming from her the closer they got to Konoha.

"I'm sorry, guys. I think that by the time we get to Konoha, he'll have had no choice but to reveal himself," said the medic bitterly.

"Then we're going straight into a warzone."

-:-

The child looked at the ninja congregate around the man who looked like minced meat, cocking her head curiously to the side.

"Ne, Atama-san, what do you think is going on?" whispered the girl to the head in her lap.

"How should I know, stupid? With the way you're holding me to your chest like a teddy bear, I can't see a fucking thing! And stop calling me 'Atama-san'! I've already told you the name's Hidan, bitch!"

"Eeeeh…But 'Atama-san' is much cuter! It's an awesome nickname!" muttered the girl to herself, shifting so that she held the head in a way that allowed it to actually see.

"I don't _need_ a nickname!" groused the head.

"B-But…Nicknames show that people are close…friends…that's what kaa-san always says…" murmured the child, abashed. She sniffled quietly, tears gathering traitorously in her green eyes.

There was a long moment of silence. Then, "Che. Do what you want."

"Atama-san!" she cried happily, tears of joy flowing down her cheeks, and hugged the head tightly to her chest.

A large shadow fell on her, making her look up instantly at the ninja towering above her.

"Ah…"

"Whoa, I didn't see that one coming," said the giant with a whistle of surprise. "You'd better give that back to me, girl before he bites you or something."

He reached for the head, but she held it defensively against her chest and twisted to the side in a clear way to keep him from reaching the lone head. "He won't! 'Cause Atama-san's my friend!" she retorted with a pout. In her arms, the head gave a suspicious grunt that sounded vaguely embarrassed.

"Your f—" He took a deep breath to calm down and tried not to let his irritation show. "Hey, kid, do you even know who that guy is?"

A gasp distracted them from their conversation, and Kisame found himself reaching for the older Sakura as she tottered where she stood.

"So I wasn't imagining things…What is _he_ doing here?" she asked, voice wavering.

"I…Since you disappeared, I took his head with me," explained Kisame, stopping just short of taking the girl into his arms. He forcefully restrained himself from touching her, sensing that she needed to feel independent at the moment and that touching her in any way would steal that away from her, making her react in a probably negative manner. "I hid his body and travelled with his head because I didn't want there to be even the slightest chance of him running around freely anymore."

The older girl stayed silent for a long while, gulping to make herself literally swallow the facts. "I…I'm alright. But…He has to go," she said at long last, gesturing to the glaring head.

But her younger self opposed this vehemently.

"Iie! Not Atama-san! Don't take him away from me!" she wailed, crying openly, fat tears falling on Hidan's head, soaking his silver hair, much to his disgruntlement.

"Sakura-chan…That guy is a very dangerous person, an S-class nuke-nin. He killed many people for pleasure and almost killed me, too," explained the medic gently. "He would have, too, without any hesitation. He is _not_ a good person. Besides, think about it. How would you keep a head at home? Or his body, as a matter of fact? Would you keep it in your basement? Your parents would freak out! And you couldn't very well parade around Konoha with a head cradled in your arms, could you?"

The child sniffled pitifully. "T-That's true, but…"

"Hm…Let her keep him if she wants," said Jiraiya, squatting down in front of the crying child. "He can't do much for now, and I've got an idea to make him unable to harm any of us…"

Sakura shook her head, rubbing the back of her head. "Alright, you take care of it. But for now, we really should get going. The faster we get to Konoha the better."

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Alright, alright, I know that they were supposed to get to Konoha in this chapter, but there were some important issues to be addressed. But I swear they'll be in Konoha next time.


	64. Darkness Creeping In

I apologize for the utter lateness of this chapter. I had intended to upload it sooner, but I was down since last Wednesday thanks to a damn illness. I barely managed to be coherent enough to go to my classes and answer my emails. Still, I've managed to finish this before the end of the weekend (mostly 'cause I'm too stubborn to go to sleep). And now I'm gonna go and sleep 12 hours straight. See ya Friday.

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Sarutobi Hiruzen frowned deeply. Things were not adding up. He had gotten word that Itachi, Inoichi and Ibiki were coming back to Konoha, but why were they not here yet? They were travelling too slowly.

And right here, in Konoha, he was getting a bad feeling. If he had to explain it, he would probably say that it was like he was getting a bad vibe from his village. Something that was crawling, foreboding, something that was like a putrescence sucking his beloved village dry without people realizing. And he had no idea where this feeling of his came from. It was more of a subconscious thought than anything else, but he had long ago learned to trust his instincts. Still, if only he could pinpoint what had caused this feeling in the first place…

With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and looked out the window, wordlessly contemplating his village.

"Hokage-sama, Danzo-sama is here to see you."

Frowning, he looked at his secretary.

"He didn't have an appointment," he said slowly.

"He says it's urgent. Shall I let him come in?"

He pondered over that for a moment, unhappy to be disturbed, but the line of thoughts he had been following was already slipping through his fingers like water. With a sigh, he lazily waved at the secretary to let his old teammate come in. if it was urgent, he had better see what the problem was anyway.

And so he let darkness enter the one place where light was supposed to shine.

-:-

Mikoto brandished her knife efficiently; the poor vegetables didn't stand a chance. Looking at her, anyone would have been afraid of what else she could cut with such efficiency. But for Sasuke, such a thing was normal, as he had always seen her cook that way.

"Okaa-san, I'm hungry!" he whined pitifully like only a child can.

"Wait just a moment, Sasuke-chan," she replied calmly in a motherly tone.

"But I'm hungry now!" he said, pressing his cheek to the cool wood of the table.

Shaking her head gently, she resumed chopping the vegetables. Just as she was sweeping them into a wok, Fugaku appeared in the kitchen with a grim face. She glanced at him, and stilled at the sight of a certain familiar hawk sitting on his shoulder. Instantly, her gaze strayed to his hand, and she spotted a scroll clenched in it.

"What is it, anata?" she asked anxiously.

"Warn the elders. We may have to stop a coup d'état," he told her shortly before breezing past her to contact the Nara and, unfortunately for his anger management therapy, the Hyuuga.

-:-

As expected, Nara Shikaku, upon reading the scroll, let a "troublesome" slip through his lips. Unlike so many times, that word didn't convey bored annoyance, but rather a watchful weariness that translated into worry and seriousness. Frowning, Shikaku looked at Fugaku and only asked, "Is what is in there absolutely certain?"

"It is," replied Fugaku solemnly.

"Then we must act fast. And we'll need the support of the Hyuuga clan."

"I know," replied Fugaku, not enthused but knowing their help was necessary, especially due to the dissention in his own clan.

- :-

Hyuuga Hiashi was an uptight man. He was severe, and if he usually was so, he was even haughtier in Fugaku's presence. And the fact that said man dared to come straight to his home without invitation and demand to see him—as if he didn't have a busy schedule—more than irked him.

Of course, he let him in—him and Nara Shikaku, which did weigh heavily in the balance when he decided to be accommodating—and even had tea brought in. In fact, he could hide his frown behind his cup while he calmed down enough to be civil.

"Speak quickly and leave, Uchiha-sama," he said icily. "I have things to do, too." Understand: I've got better things to do than entertain you.

"Hyuuga-sama, we need your assistance," said Shikaku as the appointed mediator.

"What is it that the _great Uchiha Clan_ needs my help with?" asked Hiashi, positively spitting out his words. Understand: you're too stuck up to come to my home, so what's the problem?

Without a word, Fugaku handed him the scroll. As the Head of the Hyuuga Clan read word after word, his face turned more and more serious, until at last he looked up, and said, "It displeases me greatly to have to ask, but is there a chance this is a fake or the contents is not completely true?" Understand: this is beneath me, but I'll ask just to be sure, so I can pin the blame on you later if you are wrong.

"We wouldn't be here if it was that simple," replied Fugaku unhappily.

"Right. Let's go see the Hokage." Understand: and get your Uchiha stench out of my house.

-:-

"Wait a moment, my old teammate," said Sarutobi, eyes fixed on a scroll. Once he was done reading it, he looked up and steepled his fingers under his chin. "Alright, what is so urgent?" he asked with a smile. "If you wanted to have a drink, you know I'm always available, right?"

"This is not about drinking," replied Danzo, "but shall we discuss in front of a sake bottle?"

Tired as he was, Sarutobi didn't hesitate to agree to a convenient excuse to skip work.

"Then let's go to the Rusty Kunai," he said enthusiastically.

-:-

When Fugaku, Shikaku and Hiashi arrived at the Hokage Tower, they were told by the Hokage's secretary that the Sandaime had left moments before with Danzo for the Rusty Kunai.

"At least he picked a bar I know," murmured Fugaku.

"Let's go get a drink ourselves," suggested Shikaku. "We can covertly observe them and intervene if Danzo-sama tries anything."

"Agreed," said Hiashi stiffly.

-:-

There were a few other people in the bar, but at this hour of the day, they were there mostly to eat snacks rather than drink. This allowed Danzo and Sarutobi to have a semblance of peace and quiet while they talked.

Still, only moments after they sat down, a rather conspicuous group came in, and Sarutobi couldn't help but stare. First, Nara Shikaku came in and, with a bored look, said, "Troublesome. We can barely see like this. Bartender, flick on the lights!" then the Heads of the two clans that hated each other most appeared behind him and sat at the same table. Fugaku and Hiashi together? Completely ludicrous.

Alarms blared in his mind. He covertly spied on them, noting the way the two men sat stiffly at a table in front of each other, Nara Shikaku sitting between them with a stern face.

"Please be civil," said Shikaku. "You're at a neutral place, public place. Don't make a scene."

Sarutobi listened with one ear, occasionally looking over Danzo's shoulder at Fugaku and Hiashi whose hissed argument soon took epic proportions. By the time they started yelling at each other, he had completely stopped pretending he wasn't listening and stared openly at them.

More by instinct than anything else, he moved to the side, and the kunai that would have severed his spine buried itself deep in the wood of the table. Whirling around, he faced one of the previous customers of the bar and withdrew a kunai of his own from his clothing to defend himself against the various people who got up from their chairs, weapons in hand. And then he felt a murderous aura behind him. And he almost froze on the spot as he realized there was just one person behind him.

_It can't be!_

-:-

Using the opportunity the three Heads of clans had created, Danzo made his move, thinking that the three men would be too engrossed in their fight to react. Of course, that was without counting on Shikaku's genius.

_He's going for it! _he thought, satisfied. Next to him, Fugaku and Hiashi continued to do what they did best: pretend like they hated each other and argue at the top of their lungs.

Using their fight as a cover for the noise he would make when he used his jutsu, he reached under the table and, hiding his hands under it, began to form hand signs. As Fugaku and Hiashi's fighting reached a pitch, he sent his shadow creeping across the floor and managed to catch a hold of Danzo's shadow as he reached across the table with a senbon.

Fugaku and Hiashi sprang into action, vaulting over the table to stop the assassins. Through all that, Danzo began to laugh like a dement. Looking at Sarutobi with a gaze filled with hate, he chuckled, "You were lucky this time, but even if you've managed to stop me, my men are about to take over, and they won't stop unless I tell them to. If you want to spare your precious village, you're going to have to release me!"

Sarutobi wrenched his eyes away, a painful frown contorting his face, and ordered Fugaku and Hiashi to mobilize their clan members.

"This is an order of the Hokage. Find any and all comrade of Danzo's and neutralize them before they can attack," he ordered, efficiently dealing with the men who, now having lost the momentum of surprise, found themselves at a disadvantage against a grief-stricken Hiruzen.

While Shikaku took out Danzo, Fugaku and Hiashi streaked out of the bar, but they were too late to prevent Danzo's attack. Already, fights were breaking out on the rooftops.

-:-

Naruto cowered in a dark corner. He had hidden from a group of angry civilians, as per his usual routine, and crawled into a stack of upturned crates. They offered him protection against the civilians' eyes; as the group passed by, he dared to heave a sigh of relief, but it was not to last, however, as the last man of the group, a rather fat middle-aged man with a receding hairline who liked to bully him, suddenly fell to the ground. Dust rose in the air, flab flopped on the ground, rippling obscenely like water, and people screamed. The child put his hands in front of his mouth to stifle his screams as he found himself staring at eyes that slowly lost their light, and he found himself unable to wrench his gaze away from the place where a kunai handle protruded starkly from beneath the man's jaw, releasing rivers of crimson that flowed down the expanse of his neck and fell onto the parched ground. As the ground swallowed more and more blood, the metallic tang assaulted his nose and grew so strong he could feel it on his tongue and in the back of his throat, and he felt it feed something deep inside him, something that felt dark and strong and oh so hungry for more…

He physically forced himself to look up, saw the people on the rooftop across the street fighting, and saw more of those shining knives glinting in the sun. Illuminated from behind, those ninja danced a magnificent dance of dark shadows, gracefully bequeathing death with a minimum of wasted energy, and as the orange glow of the sun disappeared behind the roofs, he saw only the darkness of those he had admired since long ago.

And darkness swallowed him whole.

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Dundundun! Not my favourite chapter, but things have to be written. Darkness, people. Darkness. Don't worry, Danzo isn't just gonna roll over and die. Many things are still about to happen in Konoha.


	65. He Who Lost Control

I know I promised a chapter for Friday, but I couldn't login. Anybody else had that problem? Anyway, better late than never. Enjoy this new chapter! There's much going on (and no, Danzo doesn't get his ass handed to him just yet, sorry) and Sakura's back! I promise some Hidan action next time, for those of you who seem to have gotten attached to the talking head. But there is some Mikoto-being-a-badass-kunoichi in there. I just love it when women can put their foot down and get assertive. Don't you?

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He didn't know what happened, but he suddenly wasn't hiding behind a stack of crates, but rather wallowing in some dark place. He looked around, wide-eyed, noticing stone walls all around. His feet were cold and wet. What the hell?

"Where am I?" he wondered aloud. It looked a lot like a sewer, but which one? And how had he come to get there? "Did I lose consciousness and sleepwalk or something?"

Scratching the back of his head, completely lost, he walked further into the sewer, figuring he would eventually get to the end of it or see an exit. Yet, the further he went, the more he felt bad, like something ominous was coming at him.

And then he saw the cage.

"Hello, gaki."

-:-

Sakura quickly pressed a few select points on the ROOT members' bodies and watched them slump in unconsciousness—it wouldn't do for them to try to escape while they were in Konoha. And to be certain they wouldn't be able to do anything, she pressed a few points to paralyze them. And for good measure, to be sure nobody stumbled in on them, she put a genjutsu over the area to hide them.

And then the group ran with full speed towards Konoha despite being tired and injured.

-:-

Naruto jumped up in surprise at the voice and inched closer ever so slowly, squinting to see better. He jumped back at the rumbling laughter that erupted from behind the bars and crouched defensively in an effort to make himself a smaller target.

"What a pathetic little human…"

Two bright eyes appeared, illuminated eerily in the darkness of the cage, and looked at him with paralyzing intensity.

"Unable to stand a little blood…"

Then a furry face appeared, followed by a large body, and the child soon found himself looking at a gigantic fox. He found himself mesmerized by the swishing tails and bright eyes and was unable to look away.

"W-Who are you? Are you the one who took me here?" he finally managed to ask, twitching at the belittling words.

"Heh. You're here because you were unable to face reality. Just because a man was killed by a stray kunai in front of your eyes. How pathetic."

The words sliced like knives, making the boy itch to retort that he wasn't pathetic, that he was perfectly able to take care of himself and face reality. The deformed face of the dead man popped in his mind, and he shuddered, closing his eyes to ward off the mental sight of the bloodied corpse. It didn't work.

"I…I want to go back! But then again, I don't really want to…" he trailed off. Going back meant he would see scary things again. What if there were more dead people? And where was he, anyway?

"Oh, you can leave anytime," purred the beast. "This is your mind, after all. But if you go back like this, you'll be a complete sitting duck. Completely useless and feeble. Just waiting for a stray kunai of your own."

"I'm not feeble! I'm strong! I'm strong, I'm strong, I'm strong!" yelled the child, unnoticing that the further his ire mounted, the more his control faded. Goaded by the demon, a fine layer of red chakra soon enveloped him, and then he found himself back in the alley, feeling a new strength inhabiting him, a power that obliterated his thoughts and ate him alive until there was only power and nothing else.

-:-

Mikoto held her ground against the Uchiha Elders. She, more than anyone, understood her husband, and respected his wishes.

"I am dispatching our members all over Konoha, but if you old fools even _dare_ to talk to them about using their strategic positions to overthrow the Hokage in the confusion, I swear I will kill you most painfully," she hissed, threatening them forcefully because she knew there was no other way to make them listen to her. "My husband, _your Head of Clan_, has clearly stated that he does not wish to go against this village. I know that many of you are unhappy about the recognition we receive, but we are Konoha's police force, which is already recognition enough. And if we dwell on the past, we will not be able to move on to the future. Think about it for a moment. If we, the Uchiha clan, manage to stop Danzo-sama's coup d'état, we will surely be rewarded. The Hokage will take this into consideration when he names his successor, and our Itachi-kun may very well be a most-favoured candidate."

The Elders looked at one another and began to whisper among themselves while she observed them steadfastly with crossed arms.

"My son is going to be Hokage one day, if he so wishes. He is good enough for that. And you lot aren't going to compromise his chances by acting out against your Head of Clan's orders. What he says the Uchiha Clan says. What he does the clan does. And those who act out against his orders are punished by _death_." She punctuated that last word with a pointed glare and took the time to pin each of the arrogant elders with her gaze, going from one to the other only when she felt the last one was suitably sweating uncomfortably.

The message was clear: try anything and I'll treat it as a dissension, meaning you won't have any clan to fall back on for support and protection once I haul your ass in front of the Hokage. And then I'll skin you alive. Slowly, and painfully.

-:-

"Civilians are forbidden to go outside. Stay at home and hide under tables if possible. Civilians who are outside, follow the usual directions to get to the emergency shelters. Beware of stray kunai and jutsu. I repeat: Civilians are forbidden to go outside…"

The message repeated like a mantra across the village while ninja of both factions fought it out on the rooftops and on the streets. Bodies started to appear, sliding down walls and leaving bright stains behind. They rained down, falling heavily like rocks in grotesque positions. Splayed on the ground like pancakes in a pan, blood pouring from various orifices, the ninja of Konoha died to protect their village. And more fought still.

And then a whole alley seemed to explode, and a wave of killing intent unlike any that had been felt in recent years rolled over the village. And in the coming darkness, bright crimson flames of chakra licked the nearby walls.

Fear froze the hearts of civilians and ninja alike.

-:-

By the time Sakura arrived at the village, it was dark and the only light that illuminated the sky, aside from sporadic flashes from jutsu, was a red fire that everyone recognized, if only because of the unique killing intent that came with it.

"Fuck, Naruto-kun's gone on a rampage," murmured the medic. "Jiji, that's a job for you." She had never been able to stop him when he lost control of the Kyuubi, and unlike Jiraiya, she wasn't a fuinjutsu master, so…

Clapping him on the back, she wished him good luck with a pitying smile.

At the gates, even the guards were fighting, and barely managed to spare a glance for them as they sailed past the gates hurriedly.

"First things first. We have to make sure Sakura-chan gets to safety," replied Jiraiya, nodding toward the younger girl. "We can't fight with a civilian around. She'd be bound to get hurt."

"I'll take care of it," said Inoichi, gathering the girl in his arms. Unfortunately for him, that also meant taking the foul-mouthed head.

"Alright," agreed the young medic. "Let's all disperse."

And so, with a heavy heart, she turned away from the raging inferno that was Naruto and went to help the various medics running around. Itachi nodded at her meaningfully and jumped on a nearby rooftop to help a fellow shinobi deal with one of Danzo's ROOT members. Ibiki headed off to help another one further away, and Kisame stayed with Sakura. After all, he could still help if he stayed near her, but if he ventured away from her, there was a good chance that he would be mistaken as an opportunist trying to invade Konoha and inflict as much damage as he could.

"Don't worry," he told her. "With me there, no one is gonna jump you from behind suddenly. Do your thing and let me handle all the rabble. I'll carve a path for you."

-:-

There were people around, and sweet, sweet blood pumped in their veins. He could hear it, could almost taste it, and wanted nothing more than to _see it_. He licked his lips, focusing his red eyes on a man standing near him, his fearful voice going straight through his left ear to leave as easily through his right one, the words remaining all but deciphered. He swiped his tail at him, frowning when the man jumped away, and sent another tail drilling at him, his ire and frustration mounting as the man remained elusive. It did not occur to him that having tails of red chakra was not normal. Then a second man caught his attention. He felt like he had seen him before. Shouldn't he recognize that mane of white hair? But the thought was just passing through his muddled brain and fled his mind as easily as it had appeared, and he swiped at him, belatedly hoping that he would have more success at hitting him than he had at nailing the other.

Unfortunately, it seemed the newcomer was even more slippery and had quite a few tricks up his sleeves.

-:-

The various people she healed—more like stabilized, really; she didn't have enough time to do more than that, especially at the high rite they were coming to her—told her of what had happened. And as expected, Danzo had made his move. What she hadn't expected, however, was for him to have been captured so easily.

_That sly, manipulative bastard…No doubt he's got some trick that he's itching to brandish at us gleefully. But what? What kind of insurance can he have?_

At least it seemed that the hawk she had sent Fugaku had found him easily. She regretted not having been able to send one to the Hokage, but she had a feeling it would have been intercepted, so given the choice, Fugaku was safer. And she was so glad her bet had lucked out.

_I'm glad you've given me the best proof I could ever ask for that you are loyal to Konoha._

Now, if that was so and things were resolved without too much damage—and the Uchiha clan didn't do anything stupid behind Fugaku's back—maybe that damn haunting Uchiha massacre could be crossed out of her dangerous-things-that-are-going-to-hit-the-fan-sooner-or-later list.

Staunching a heavily bleeding wound, she addressed the nearby blue man.

"Hey, Kisame-san! I'm almost done here."

"Right back at you, chibi-sensei!" he yelled, and swiftly dispatched his opponent. "Where to next?"

She thought for a moment, then got up from her crouch, wiping her bloody hands on her pants.

"I don't feel any difference in Naruto-kun's status. Kyuubi's chakra is still rolling off of him."

Looking over in the distance, Kisame whistled as he spotted the plumes of red matter roiling over the rooftops. "Right. Pretty impressive, still. Want us to go over there, see if there's anything we can help with?"

She bit her lower lip and nodded. "I think…there's not much I can do, but I assume he must have left quite a number of people in bad shape. While I heal them, can you help jiji? Suck that chakra off with Samehada or something."

"Yeah, sure thing. Samehada's going to be happy to have so much chakra to feed on," replied the nuke-nin with a shrug.

"Just…try not to hurt him too much, alright? He's just a kid, you know?"

He reassured her with a smile and took off, trusting she would follow him closely. And it was a good thing she did, or he would have been attacked by a certain green beast.

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Since I've typed this whole chapter yesterday, in-between visits at the hospital to see my grandmother and spending some rare time alone with my father, I think I did pretty good. Anyway, review! You make me so happy when you do!


	66. Fuinjutsu

Alright, it's late, but it's still Saturday! Enjoy, will you? I had fun writing this, even if it was hard at times. Still, RL is kinder on me now. Have fun, people, that's what life is all about!

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The out-of-control child rampaged through the streets, lost in the chakra of the malevolent demon. And Jiraiya, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in response to the evil vibes washing over the village.

"How to stop him without hurting him…" he mused out loud. He supposed if he could find a way to seal the fox's chakra, the boy would return to normal, but that entailed creating a seal on the go. _Now's not the time to mess up._

He crouched on a rooftop from which he had a prime view of the child and took out paper and a brush. Observing the blonde out of the corner of one eye, he set to work, his brain functioning twice as fast as usual to return the boy to normal before he did more serious damages than destroyed houses and injured ninja. He figured that if anyone died because of Naruto, he would be put down, never mind that he wasn't responsible for his actions. After all, the villagers had only been waiting for such an opportunity to have him killed because he proved to be a danger to Konoha.

"Wait for me, Naruto-kun. I'll get you out of this mess," he murmured determinedly.

-:-

Gai appeared, blocking Kisame's path. Somehow, he managed, with his famous pose, to make a sunset appear behind him before settling into a taijutsu stance with a frown.

"You swine! You dare to try to invade our beautiful Konoha! Fight me, then, for you shall not pass unless I am dead!"

Cocking an eyebrow, Kisame only drawled, "Aren't you ashamed of showing up in that outfit? Or is it to seduce women? Can't really hide much under that, can you?"

Gai's eyebrow twitched at the seemingly casual musing and he exploded into action with a mighty kiai.

Sakura cursed mentally as she saw the foreseen potential disaster come to life in front of her.

"Hell no!" she growled, very much unhappy with Kisame at the moment. He didn't need to goad the man into a fight, and _especially not_ at this moment. Running up a wall, she jumped up, hand outstretched, and grabbed Kisame's ankle as he prepared to slice at Gai, effectively destabilizing him. He was pulled down with her, Gai sailing harmlessly past him right above his head, and twisted to land on the ground next to Sakura.

"Eh? What did you do that for?" he asked, somehow coming across as completely clueless.

_Stay calm, Sakura. Don't kill him. Even if he's acting stupidly._

"Tell me. You _are_ aware that we're here for a reason, right?" she asked, cracking her knuckles threateningly—and damn it, the pain shooting through her fingers was well worth it.

"Riiiight…" he trailed off, arms limp against his sides. Samehada whined lowly in his hand, sad to have been deprived of an opportunity to taste chakra. He didn't have time to say anything else as the Green Beast of Konoha jumped down from the rooftop with a yell.

"How cowardly of you to run from a fight, nuke-ni—huh? Sakura-sensei?" Surprised, Gai looked up from Kisame to Sakura and back at Kisame, trying to figure out how it was that a) Sakura was alive and well and b) how it was that she and a notorious nuke-nin were in Konoha.

"Ano…Hello, Maito-san," she said, feeling somewhat sheepish at the less than ideal reunion. "Are you well?"

"I…Hai, I am—wait, what is going on here?" he asked suspiciously.

"I…I had foreseen that Danzo-san would make waves here once he learned that I was alive, and Kisame-san accompanied me," she said, not knowing where to start explaining everything that had happened.

"You…Prove to me that you are indeed the youthful sensei I know!" demanded Gai—if this person used a henge, he would show no mercy.

"Alright…Back when I still lived in my cave and slept on furs, I had a nightmare, and you hugged me tightly to your chest for the rest of the night."

With a nod, Gai relaxed, his stance immediately reflecting that he trusted her, for no one else but the medic could have known this.

"But…what is he doing here with you?" he asked, pointing at Kisame.

"Of course I would be with her!" snorted Kisame, miffed that the annoying man was ignoring him openly. "That's what boyfriends do, care for their girlfriend, help her and protect her!"

Now, it was clear that Gai was completely lost.

"Wait…I thought you were being courted by the Uchiha heir…" murmured Gai, quite unlike his usual exuberant self. Yep, he was truly lost.

"Unfortunately, that is so," grumbled Kisame. "Me and him both."

"Shush, this is not the time for that sass," hissed Sakura with a light slap on the blue man's arm.

"You…he…and him…" stuttered the green-clad man, swirls appearing in his eyes as his brain fried, overworked.

The next thing he knew, he was on his back and someone was shaking him. Opening his eyes, he slowly focused on Sakura's face, right above him.

"Gai-san! Gai-san!"

"I think you broke him."

At the calm words, her head turned to the side; he imitated her and found himself looking at the tall blue man crouching next to him.

"Shut up. That's not funny. I'm trying to help that poor guy here. He's too innocent for your mind games," retorted the girl.

_Fainting…how unyouthful of me…_

At that moment, it seemed that the two noticed that he was back in the land of the living, and focused back on him.

"Are you alright, Maito-san?" asked Sakura, sounding faintly worried.

"Ah…Please do not worry about me, sensei. I'm…The power of youth is strong in me!"

She took that to mean that he was fine.

"Alright then. We've got things to do. Kisame-san, please only attack Danzo-san's forces. They're easy enough to recognize. Come to me if anybody else attacks you. Maito-san…sorry, but we've got no time to spare."

Getting to his feet, Gai nodded and, with his signature pose, announced that he would accompany them.

-:-

Nara Shikamaru observed the red pyre across the village through his window.

_How troublesome._

With all that light and the vibes associated with it, he couldn't sleep a wink. He looked at ninja fighting one another on the rooftops and wondered when all that fuss would end.

"Go to sleep, Shikamaru-kun," said his mother, entering his bedroom. Turning away from the window, he looked at her with bored eyes, noting that she had traded her usual clothing for ninja apparel. It appeared that his mother was preparing to defend their home if need be.

He hummed noncommittally. He doubted he could sleep, but going outside would only be troublesome.

"Otou-san is out there," he murmured more pensively than anything else.

"Hai," replied his mother, probably thinking, too, that it was troublesome.

"How troublesome."

She only nodded in agreement.

-:-

Sarutobi ground his teeth, his fists shaking on either side of his body. All of this…this whole mess…

He looked at his beautiful village and cursed his old teammate for making people of the same village fight against one another.

_Why, Danzo-san?_

Eyes hardening, he glanced at the incapacitated man next to him, hands and feet bound with coils of ninja wire. The light in the man's eye was challenging. With a frown, the Hokage looked away.

"Your people certainly seem to care nothing for injuries, but they are outnumbered. Sooner or later, we'll win. It's a just a matter of time."

_Even if all else fails, I'll never hand over Konoha to a man like you. Not to you, Danzo-san. Not now that I know how you really are._

Pinching his lips angrily, he waved for one of his ANBU to take Danzo away.

_I'll believe in the will of fire._

-:-

Sakura wanted oh so desperately to go to Naruto, but she kept stumbling onto injured ninja sporting life-threatening wounds.

"Damn it. If this goes on, I'll never get to him," she growled in frustration.

Slicing at a ROOT member nearby, Kisame heard her words and jumped next to her, putting his sword on his shoulder as the woman he had been fighting dropped down heavily, bleeding to death.

"What can you do anyway?" he asked. "In that state, nobody can reason with the jinchuuriki, even if you know him well."

"I know, but jiji can stop him. _If_ he uses the chakra-suppressing seal. But I forgot that at this point in time, he hasn't created it yet. I don't know if he'll have enough time to create it on-the-go like this. So I need to draw what I remember of the seal he created before, in my time, and give it to him so that he can use it as a base and save time and…"

"I'll get it to him," he said, cutting off her rambling.

"Eh?"

"I said I'll get it to him. Just draw it."

She smiled and impulsively hugged him—or at least tried to, as her small arms didn't quite reach around his back.

"Thanks, Kisame-san! You're the best!" she said with a blinding smile and promptly began to paint a seal on the back of his clothes with the blood that stained her hands. Kisame was glad that she couldn't see his face; he was afraid that she'd see his own smile and, more embarrassing, his red cheeks. More like purple, really, in his case, he thought with a small chuckle that he repressed for the sake of offering the female a stable writing tablet.

"I'll take that green-clad monstrosity that passes off for a human with me," he said. "That way, I'll get to that annoying father of yours without being sidetracked by anymore Konoha shinobi, alright?"

"Alright. And I'm done. Off you go."

With a salute to the petite girl, he jumped away, grabbed Gai by the collar of his clothes, and darted for the red light that illuminated the night sky. And promptly let go, because touching those green things made him nauseous.

-:-

Jiraiya was still quite busy coming up with a seal when two men landed next to him. To his utmost annoyance, Kisame was one of the two.

"Why aren't you with Sakura-chan?" he demanded, frowning.

"She sent me here with this," replied the blue man, discarding his top. The white-haired man grabbed the garment flung at him, eyes lighting up at the red marks on it.

"Ooooh…Nice…Very nice…I think I may work with this…Hm…There's a mistake or two, but she did quite a good job," he murmured to himself, already thinking of ways to work on it.

Kisame rolled his eyes; he could almost see the gears turning in the Sannin's head. With a snort, he got up from his crouch, announcing that he would go down there to drain the kid of some of his chakra. As expected, he barely received a half-hearted wave as a sendoff from the older man.

"Let me assist you in that courageous test, companion!" exclaimed Gai, as exuberant as ever in a bid to make up for his recent show of weakness.

-:-

There was nothing but rubble around him, and rubble was boring. He was looking for something more stimulating, something that could bleed, something that could fight back, something that he could crush gleefully.

And as though his wish were granted, two presences appeared in front of him.

His mind hissed sibilantly with pleasure for but a moment before he felt pain flare in his abdomen, and then something draining out of him. Disoriented, he flailed about, tried to defend himself, but though he felt he hit something, he was so blinded by the unexpected pain that he could do nothing much. Those pesky people were slipperier than eels!

But as it so happened, something snapped inside of him, and suddenly he was no more.

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The conclusion of this arc is coming soon. Can you feel it? And you'll see what happened to Naruto. Unfortunately, no fight between Kisame and Gai, but who knows, that may yet happen.


	67. Plans in Motion

Welcome, people, to a new chapter! Last time, I had to set up the stage, so this time you'll get to enjoy what I've been concocting behind the scene…Thanks for all of your reviews, guys! I love hearing from you! It makes me happy to hear from my fans, like seeing a ray of sunshine after a long day of rain. Anyway, I immensely enjoyed writing this chapter, so I hope it's as fun to read as it was to write. You know how I love political dealings by now. And you must like them a bit too, if you're reading this story. Read on, read on, there are goodies awaiting you…

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Shikamaru was watching when the mass of red light disappeared. One moment it was there, and the other it was gone. Just like pulling the plug.

"How troublesome."

A frown appeared on his face as he noticed dark shadows creeping across the grounds. And even intensified as other shadows dashed at them to intercept them. Recognizing the second group as people from his clan, he got away from the window slowly, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up to attention.

Screams reached his ears, wordless yells mixed with screamed jutsu, and the grounds exploded into light, rubble flying around dangerously.

And with the cover of the dirt suspended in the air, someone entered his room, someone who wasn't part of his clan. Someone who pressed a kunai to his jugular in one smooth move and took off with him into the night.

-:-

The young girl looked around her fearfully, clutching her precious treasure close to her chest. She had been told by the scary scarred man that she should hide the head if she intended to keep it—which was a given, of course. So she had wrapped Atama-san in a cloth and pleaded with him to be quiet. _That_ had been a bit difficult to obtain, but he had eventually relented and settled into stubborn silence.

She had been left alone with the other civilians in a shelter, and at first it had been alright. Everyone was afraid, but they knew the shelters would shield them from the violence outside. And _at first_, that had been the case.

Until they heard screams from right outside the shelter, and she realized that their ninja guards were fighting.

Instantly, alarm bells sounded in her mind and she retreated to the furthest and darkest corner she could find. Trying to make herself as small as possible, she put her fist in her mouth to keep from making a sound as suddenly, ninja appeared, covered in the blood of their guardians, and started to slaughter the civilians. They slashed and hacked, their movements almost robotic, deaf to the screams of the civilians. Those who tried to run away were taken down from behind, falling to the ground like dismantled puppets, and the slaughter only continued.

_This is not happening! This can't be happening!_

She bit down on her hand, eyes wide, and tasted blood in her mouth, panicked mind repeating the same words over and over again, as though with repetition, she would eventually come to believe them.

"You're gonna die, girl," murmured the head she still clutched to her chest. In response, her arms tightened around it, and she hissed, heartbeat accelerating, "I don't want to die! I don't!"

She barely managed to stifle an "eep!" of fright as a civilian crashed on the ground near her. eyes looking straight at her, he opened his mouth, as though trying to tell her something, and exhaled one last time before the veil of death covered his eyes.

"Cut his head off," whispered Hidan, looking at the civilian through the eyeholes Sakura had ripped in the wrapping cloth.

"What?" she gasped, appalled.

"Obviously, you can't fight for shit," hissed Hidan. "And _I_ am an S-class nuke-nin. But I can't fight in this fucking state either. So take that kunai out of his chest, cut that man's fucking neck and attach me to it. It won't be perfect, but at least I'll be able to fucking move."

And so, bile raising in her throat, the young girl did her best to behead a dead man surreptitiously according to the instructions of a lone head.

-:-

With Kisame and Gai used as a distraction, Kisame sucking the demonic chakra with Samehada and Gai using his taijutsu to keep the lost boy too busy to notice his surroundings, Jiraiya managed to creep in and swiftly paste his seal to Naruto's stomach. For good measure, he stuck a second one on his forehead simultaneously and stepped back as the boy stilled instantly.

And then his eyes rolled back in his head. The crimson chakra disappeared without a sound. With a barely perceptible sigh, the boy slumped, and the older man darted forward to catch him in his arms and hold him close like a baby. With the boy cradled to his chest, the Sannin could feel how light he was; lighter than any boy his age should be. Was it because every time he spied on him, Naruto was so energetic that he failed to realize how thin he was? How stupid of him to assume that energy equaled good health.

_I'll keep a closer eye on you_, he thought to himself.

Kisame and Gai walked up to him slowly.

"So? The gaki alright?" asked the nuke-nin, putting his sword on his shoulder. He bent down, peeking at the mop of blonde hair in Jiraiya's arms to check for any signs of the Kyuubi reappearing.

"Hai. The seal worked," replied Jiraiya.

"How youthful!" exclaimed Gai with his signature pose—both men tried _really_ hard to ignore the blinding sunset behind the ninja, but it was a futile endeavour. No one short of Kakashi could manage to do that.

_I think I've found a new reason to respect him_, thought Jiraiya. _Maybe I should dedicate my next book to him…_

"Hey…Is it just me or has the atmosphere changed while we were fighting the brat?" asked Kisame, looking around with furrowed brows.

Jiraiya looked up, too, and frowned as he realized the blue man was right. _Something_ didn't feel right.

_It's like something important happened behind our backs while we were busy with this crisis._

-:-

The ninja had disappeared, but as Hidan pointed out, that didn't mean they were safe. They could come back at any time to check if everyone was really dead and check more carefully for anyone hiding in dark corners. As it was, she was just lucky that the corpulent man who had died next to her had hidden her trembling form.

_Sorry, Unknown-san_, she thought to herself, hands trembling as she sawed at his neck with the kunai she had retrieved from his back.

"Put more strength into it, girl," hissed Hidan quietly. "I can feel chakra signatures outside. Get to it or they'll fucking come back before I can move!"

Desperation clawed at her, sinking its claws and teeth into her heart and pulling harshly at it until she felt breathless, until cold sweat poured down her brow, until her arms ached with the strength she put into her sawing. And then the head seemed to pop out and rolled on the ground, somehow stopping in such a way that its eyes were still piercing her. With a shudder, the young girl made it roll onto its other cheek with the tip of her forefingers, looking away from the seemingly judging her.

"Sorry," she whispered to it pleadingly.

"Don't be such a pussy," reprimanded Hidan, reminding her of his presence on the ground next to her. "Attach me to that flabby neck, will ya? And be quick about it, those fucking morons may be back any minute now."

Nodding determinedly, the young girl untied the cloth hiding Hidan and took the head in her hands, happy that her trembling had abated and that her palms had stopped sweating.

"I can do this," she murmured to herself, pumping up. "I can."

"Damn right you can. And you're gonna do it," agreed Hidan with a smirk.

"Right. I'm doing it. I'm doing it now," she murmured, aligning the head with the spine of the dead civilian. She noticed that the neck of the civilian was much bigger than Hidan's because he was much fatter, and wondered how she would manage to make the two mismatched pieces stick together. "Ano…Wait a moment, Atama-san. I'll try to cook up something to make your head stick."

She looked around at the fallen bodies, eyes lighting up when she found just what she needed a short ways away. She crawled to the strangled woman and deftly unraveled the ninja wire from her neck, then tiptoed back to where she had left the headless body and the bodiless head.

"Here!" she whispered, brandishing the wire victoriously. "With this, I'll be able to sew you on that body, Atama-san!"

"Yeah? And with what needle, you idiot?" retorted Hidan tartly. For a moment, she was silent, then he saw her eyes shift ever so slightly toward the kunai resting innocently on the ground between them. "Fuck no."

"Please, Atama-san! It's the only way it'll work!" pleaded Sakura.

"No way! You ain't poking holes in me with that fucking thing!" exclaimed the Jashinist.

"I…Excuse me, Atama-san!" she said, dropping into a dogeza before starting to poke holes into his neck, much to his verbalized outrage.

Even as he grumbled and glared at her darkly, she continued her work, and eventually linked the holes she had made with the ninja wire. As she pulled on it to tighten her crude stitches, she felt a presence looming above her dangerously. Her head snapped up; her cry strangled in her throat, she stared, transfixed, at the katana heading straight for her, sure to crack her skull in half. She saw her eyes dancing along the sharp edge, saw her demise, and then there was a hairy arm in front of her, brandishing a kunai magnificently, and the blade was averted, and she was hyperventilating, memories coming to the surface, swallowing her in the terror of another battle, a battle that had ended badly for her, a battle that had taken her to a dark and dark place, smelling of mold and dirt and blood alike, a place where there had been a single, dim ray of hope shining tentatively—

"Girl! Snap out of it! You're a fucking sitting duck!"

_Eh? What?_

Her eyes focused once more, and she found herself surprised at the sight. Looking quite grotesque, Hidan, attached to a body several times larger than his own, fought tooth and nail the ninja who had crept up on them.

"I'm not gonna be responsible if a fucking kunai gets you between the eyes! And don't you dare die because of that fucking guy! No one's allowed to kill you except me!"

Stunned, she wondered why she felt warm at the crude words that should logically have made her want to run away as far as she could from the dangerous man. Instead, she nodded with a bright smile and ducked behind another mountain of flesh.

"Haaaai!~"

And the Jashinist found himself thinking, _Che. What an annoyingly sunny disposition._

-:-

"Hokage-sama! There are reports that several civilian shelters were attacked!"

_Danzo…_

"Furthermore, it seems that several clans have been attacked. There were casualties, but it appears that the only goal of the assailants was to kidnap the clan heirs."

The old man felt his blood freeze in his veins. Was this the true aim of Danzo's attack? If so, what did he intend to do now?

Grinding his teeth, he nodded to the messenger. Eyes blazing, he ordered frostily, "Get Danzo-san in here. _Now_."

-:-

Stuck in his cell, Danzo waited. It didn't matter how long he had to wait, he knew Sarutobi would eventually have to call on him.

_Have you realized it yet? That you are helpless? You are dancing in my palm, Sarutobi. I'm the one holding all the cards. How long until you resolve yourself to dance to my tune?_

Smirking, he settled back against the wall.

_You complete idiot. Of course I had an ace up my sleeve, in case my plan didn't run smoothly._

A dark chuckle rattled his frame.

_What do you think you can do with the clan heirs in my hands?_

Once again, a smirk crept onto his face.

_Better move fast, Sarutobi. Who knows how many civilians my men will kill before you decide to abandon your useless pride?_

In the cell, the cruel laughter that erupted was anything but human.

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Aaaaaah! I feel so refreshed! Writing this part was so much fun. It's been a long time since I've felt so completely satisfied with one of my chapters, but this…this is _good_. Such cunningness put into words…it's like savoring a hard-obtained delicacy.


	68. Following a Trail of Crumbs Leads to

Sorry for the lateness, guys. Between my lack of time, my insomnia and way too many things to think of at once to ensure that nothing blew up in my face (figuratively speaking, of course), I didn't have time to work on this chapter till yesterday. I spent most of my day today typing it, so forgive me if there are any mistakes, I didn't reread it. I'm glad so many of you enjoyed the last chapter. This one is more slow-going, but as I've said before, you have to set up things before you can blow them up. Or something like that. Enjoy!

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Sarutobi had to refrain from punching his old teammate as he was brought before him, and that was quite possibly one of the hardest things he had ever done. He recognized that look in his eye. That look of satisfaction, of, dare he think it, _victory_ chilled him to the bone.

"It appears that you had a plan hidden up your sleeve, Danzo-san," he said coldly, trying not to grind his teeth.

"Ah, so it finally happened, ne?" replied Danzo mockingly. "Which was first? The kidnapping of the clans' heirs or the murder of the civilians? Better move fast, my people have orders to keep killing civilians until they get your attention and you release me. The clock is ticking, Sarutobi."

So that was it.

The old man's eyes narrowed. As if it would be that simple. What proof did he have that the massacre would cease by releasing Danzo? Especially if the man wanted to take over Konoha. That would just be handing him an ace in the deadly game they were playing.

"I don't think so," murmured the Sandaime frostily. He turned to one of his ANBU. "Find Morino-san. It seems I'll have use of his expertise to find out where the heirs have been taken and what he intends to do with them."

As the masked man left, Sarutobi turned once more to his old advisor.

"I would sooner kill you than leave this village in your hands, my old teammate."

-:-

Sakura frowned. Something…something in the air felt different.

_What could it be?_

It was more of a subconscious feeling than anything, but she had long since learned to rely on those feelings that she couldn't explain.

And then a thought came to her.

_Why have I encountered less injured ninja since a while ago? Those ROOT members couldn't have all been dispatched yet._

She frowned deeply.

That slippery man…could he possibly have had something more planned? Something that needed a good number of men for?

_This whole mess stinks worse than horse shit…_

Her frown now threatening to take over her face, she concentrated and let her senses expand further and further, until she sensed something amiss and focused solely on that specific speck.

"What the hell is Shikamaru-kun doing so far from the Nara compound at this time of the night, especially on a night such as this?"

She thought long and hard about it, mentally following the speck that was his chakra signature, but no matter how much she tried to identify the chakra signature that accompanied Shikamaru's, she came up blank.

_This stinks. Bad._

She bit her lip. If she went after him…

Naruto, Jiraiya, Kisame and Gai were in the opposite direction.

_What to do…_

She grimaced bitterly and gently shook her patient awake.

"I've bandaged up your legs. You took a bad fall, but your head is fine, if a bit bloody. Please, I have something to ask of you. West of here, you'll find my father, Jiraiya-san. Please tell him that I've gone East, to follow a most troublesome discrepancy in nature's energy. He'll understand. And please, don't attack the blue nuke-nin that will be with him. He's…important to me, and no threat to Konoha. Now go!"

She ran off, leaving the ninja slightly bewildered but still willing to do her bidding.

-:-

Shikamaru came to, wincing as he felt his head threatening to split open. It took him but a moment to realize that he must have been knocked out—and rather brutally as that—by his abductor to make for a swifter getaway. He moaned slowly, rubbing the back of his head, and gingerly sat up to look at his surroundings.

It was dark, and he could barely see anything, but he let his hands run across the walls and quickly determined they were made from stone. That, and they were cold, the place smelled like dirt and earth mixed with sweat, and it was humid.

_How troublesome._

Apparently, he was in a cell of some sort and, judging by the rustling he could hear, there was somebody else in that cell. It appeared that he had been dumped unceremoniously in the first cell his kidnapper came across, then, if they didn't bother to put him in an empty cell.

"Where am I?" he asked, blinking to try to adjust to the darkness.

"In a cell."

"Of course. How troublesome."

He stayed silent for a moment, looking at the direction in which the voice had come from, and eventually, getting used to the darkness, he saw his interlocutor. The boy appeared to be no older than him, but he couldn't say much more about him except the fact that he didn't recognize him and that the stranger didn't seem overly concerned about him or the situation in general.

"Who are you?" he asked at length, because while he didn't feel much like speaking unless necessary—as usual—he could feel that the other wasn't about to speak anytime soon. How troublesome.

"I don't know."

There was a beat of silence. Had they been outside, he was sure they would have heard the chirping of a cricket trying to fill the lack of sound.

"…How informative." He sighed, long-suffering. "Well, anybody called you anything, then?"

That seemed to spark a reaction in the other boy, as he hummed pensively for a moment, eyebrows scrunched together, before nodding slowly, almost uncertainly.

"I…There was a girl once…I think she called me…'Sai' when she was sick and feverish," he said quietly, trying to remember. "But maybe she didn't refer to me," he finished, shrugging. After all, he didn't have a name and who knew what the blind girl saw during her feverish dreams?

"Alright…Well, let's call you Sai for now. So, do you know how to get out of here?"

"Get out of here? Why?" asked the other boy, sounding slightly bewildered, as though the idea had never occurred to him. Didn't he see the point in escaping? Then again…if the boy thought he had no name, perhaps he couldn't remember his family.

"'Cause this is a boring place," replied Shikamaru. "I bet you can't play shogi here, ne?"

"Shogi? What's that?" asked the other.

"The best game in the world. I'll show you when we get out," replied the Nara.

"What's a game?"

"…How troublesome."

-:-

By the time Hidan managed to kill the ROOT members who had suddenly appeared to finish the job, his borrowed body was covered in blood. He glared at the slashes on the fat body, clearly unhappy that he had been injured. In _his_ body, which was trained and wonderful and perfect for him—obviously—he would never have been even touched by those guys. But the body he was borrowing was a) dead thus slowly rotting and he had to fight against rigor mortis, b) fat thus slower to move and c) a civilian's to boot, which meant that the original owner had never used chakra before and certainly never trained, if the weight of the body was any indication.

As a result, he was severely ticked off. Almost enough to strangle the sweet little girl as she came running up to him with a relieved face when the last of the ninja fell.

"Atama-saaaaaan! You won, you won, you won! I was so scared, Atama-san! Does it hurt? It must hurt, there are cuts all over you—but it's not really your body, so do you still feel pain? And—"

Hidan put a large hand over the babbling girl's mouth and detached her from him, which was quite a feat, considering the way she was clinging to him with her small fists.

"Shut up, brat. I'm fine," he growled, then added, "Why did you fucking come out? There may have been more guys left. Always check for hidden enemies before coming out of your fucking shelter. Jashin-sama, you're such a fucking airhead!"

Despite the crude words, the little girl smiled brightly. She had by now gotten used to Hidan's crass way of talking and took his words as advice more than some insult directed at her.

He cared. That was the only thing that was important. Even if he proceeded to bump her in the head with one meaty fist at her huge grin.

"Don't be so fucking happy, brat," he grumbled, and took her arm to force her to follow him out of the shelter.

"Eh? Atama-san, where are we going?" she asked curiously. She was supposed to stay in the shelter. If she left it, wouldn't she be scolded?

"Fucking idiot. This place obviously isn't safe if those guys can come in and slaughter everyone as they fucking please. And that massacre's bound to attract attention, so we're relocating, damn it."

She looked at him, eyes wide, her mouth forming a perfect O. "Ooooh…You're so clever, Atama-san!"

"Yeah, yeah, now shut up before you get us spotted by those fucking pansy ninja."

Once again, the words had no real heat behind them.

-:-

Sakura, having followed the ninja hauling Shikamaru's unconscious body away, stopped at a distance, concealing, like the very man she had been following, her chakra so as not to be spotted.

_It's like he suddenly disappeared…_she thought, frowning. She figured there must have been a genjutsu on the area that prevented anyone from sensing anything that went on beyond it. If not, it would be impossible for Danzo to hide the existence of so many people without anyone suspecting anything was amiss.

Fortunately, she was good at genjutsu and was confident she could slip past that one. Unfortunately, she was _not_ confident about doing it alone without any knowledge of the number of people who could be waiting for an intrusion on the other side.

_Come on, guys, get your asses over here!_ she growled mentally. She could feel herself itching to get in there and punch to hell any and all ROOT members she encountered.

And yet, at the same time, she felt quite reluctant to enter that place. She got some vibes from that place that made shivers run down her spine. And it occurred to her that it was quite possible that she had been there before.

_What if this place is where I was imprisoned? _she thought worriedly. Worse still, what if she froze in there, struck dumb by paralyzing emotions and memories?

At the back of her mind, Inner snorted that if that was the case, she would take over. It was reassuring, but she was afraid of herself. That traumatizing period…she hadn't really had time to work through what she felt about that time, and that was more dangerous than anything.

_What if I react unpredictably and endanger someone? Or hurt them?_

She shook her head, trying to banish the thought.

_Quick, guys. Who knows what they're doing in there?_

It took all she had not to rush in there, but she had seen what kinds of disaster a reckless charge could amount in too many times with Naruto already. Biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, she forced her body into utter stillness.

-:-

Itachi, having encountered several people from his clan, made his way toward the Uchiha compound. He had dealt with many an enemy on that strange night, and would doubtlessly deal with many more still, but he first had to see if his home was protected. With the number of Uchiha out on the streets, were there enough people to defend the compound in case of an attack? He would never forgive himself if anything happened to his family because he had failed to check on them before actively seeking out enemies.

An acrid smell wafted up to his nose as he approached his home, and he soon got to see the flames eating up part of the compound.

A misfired Katon jutsu? Some deliberate attempt at setting fire to the compound? Whatever the cause was, it had sent people scurrying around, trying to extinguish the fire that was eating away at their homes and propagated thick, blinding smoke in the streets.

There were clangs of weapons, he realized as he approached closer still. A fight, then.

_Who dares to attack the Uchiha Clan?_

Better yet, who dared to attack them and hope to survive? Something sinister was going on and he didn't like it. Especially so close to home.

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There's some ass-kicking coming in the next chapter! We'll see if Danzo finally gets his ass handed to him, ne? ^^

Let's all hate him together.


	69. Unforgiving Clashes and Deadliness

Hello all! It's been a while since you've had news of Itachi. This time, you'll see him, and I promise a meeting between him and another character you all seem to like! Read on and find out who!

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By the time Gai, Kisame and Jiraiya found Sakura, she had nearly bitten straight through her lower lip, so tense was she at having to wait so near the place where she had been kept prisoner for a year. Her whole body was one big mess of nerves rolled together. High-strung, she deliberately stopped herself from making a single step in direction of the genjutsu and instead focused on the three males beside her.

"I followed a guy up to here," she whispered. "He had kidnapped Shikamaru-kun. I…I think this is where I was kept after my kidnapping."

Jiraiya observed her gravely. "Sakura-chan…I think it would be better if you didn't go in there with us."

She felt stung, but realistically could understand why he preferred she stay behind. Being a liability wasn't an option, and there was no telling how she might react to finding herself in the place where she had been tortured once again. They could not afford to have to watch her in case she collapsed or reacted badly to the stimuli the environment would inevitably bring her.

"Hai, I…I'll stay here."

"I'll send a frog to you if we need any help," promised the Sannin. "Here. Take this," he continued, and carefully handed her the package he had been cradling against his chest. "I couldn't leave Naruto-kun back there, it would have been too dangerous. Please watch over him until our return, alright?"

Accepting the precious bundle, she nodded in assent.

"Hai. I'll look over him."

Gai directed a thumbs up at her silently, and she wondered how much it could have cost him to stay silent, but she soon shifted her attention to Kisame. The blue man nodded at her and gently ruffled her hair.

"What happened to you will never happen again, and to no one else," he swore firmly, and took off after the other two who had conveniently taken that chance to leave them a modicum of privacy under the pretense of inspecting the surroundings.

She gently ran a hand through Naruto's tousled hair, praying that everything ended up alright.

-:-

Through the smoke, Itachi managed to spot someone getting away. He wondered for a moment why no one else was stopping him, but realized they were all concentrating on keeping the fire under control and fighting the intruders still in the compound.

As it was, it appeared he was the only one spotting the man getting away, so he pursued him, only realizing then that the man was not alone. His eyes remained fixated on the bundle under the ninja's arm. Those were…feet. Definitely feet.

His gaze turned crimson.

_Which member of my clan did you dare to take hostage?_

His world sharpened, his heart sped up, and he recognized his precious little brother.

_Oh no you didn't!_

He ran after him, murder in his eyes, his whole body preparing for the upcoming fight.

-:-

Ibiki followed the ANBU who had come to get him. He wondered what the Hokage wanted with him so urgently. He understood that there were things that the wise man could need help with, but to the point that he couldn't wait?

_Urgent indeed_, he thought to himself, forced to follow the ANBU's breakneck speed.

He wondered the reason for his summoning was until he laid eyes on Danzo, bound on the floor next to the Hokage's feet. Somehow, the man looked victorious even in his state.

"You called for me, Hokage-sama?" he said, not looking at the bound man on the floor.

"Hai. It has come to my attention that Danzo-san's people have started abducting the clan heirs. Find out where they are. Use all of your knowledge and techniques at their finest. I do not care how you obtain the information. If you need to, you may inflict any kind of injuries. It matters not if he never recovers."

Ibiki had rarely seen his Kage be so cold, but understood that the circumstances called for an unforgiving leader. He nodded, and asked, "Physically or mentally?"

"Both, if necessary."

The tired old man turned his back on them; he didn't turn back as Ibiki dragged the struggling and suddenly less victorious councilor out of the room. Not even as cries could be heard from the room next door. He merely closed his eyes painfully, head bent, and cursed Danzo for forcing him to make such a decision.

-:-

Itachi's battle took him less than fifteen minutes to conclude, from the start of the case to the end of the actual fight. As soon as the ROOT member noticed he was followed, he turned to attack, but Itachi was faster and fuelled by all the protective feelings a brother could feel for his younger sibling. And once the man made the mistake of turning a kunai on Sasuke, he became ruthless. The Mangekyou burned brightly in Itachi's eyes with startling intensity, bringing scorching heat to his retina, and then he caught the abductor's eyes, and _he_ was the one feeling scorching heat and blinding pain.

The world of Tsukiyomi was cruel and unforgiving, and when the man collapsed, Itachi didn't spare him a single glance. Sasuke was his sole priority and concern.

"Talk to me, otouto," he murmured, taking the boy in his arms. He crouched on a roof and rubbed at his eyes, feeling pain not unlike a migraine bloom behind them. A little hand landed on his forearm, stopping him short, and he looked down at the soulful black depths of his little brother's eyes.

"Aniki…You're back…Ne, aniki…Do your eyes hurt? Kaa-san says you can't rub your eyes, 'cause you can hurt them that way."

"Aah, I understand," murmured Itachi with a small smile, feeling his voice catch in his throat. The boy probably didn't know it, but he had been moments away from being whisked away to a place where his smile would never shine again. "Come, otouto. This place is not safe. Hang on to me."

His plan had been to take Sasuke back to the Uchiha compound and leave him under the supervision of their mother, but something caught his eye. He stopped short and took a second glance at that which had grabbed his attention. That flash of pink…He knew of only two people who had that shade of hair.

He jumped down from the rooftop and landed next to the young girl, noting disappointedly that the pinkette wasn't the one he would have rather found there.

"Haruno-san, weren't you supposed to be in a shelter?" he asked the girl, putting Sasuke down as he was sure the boy didn't want to be babied in front of one of his fangirls.

"H-Hai, but…there was…" she stuttered, only to be cut off by a masculine voice.

"Those fucking shelters aren't worth shit if it's so easy to come in and fucking slaughter everyone inside."

Itachi whirled around, hand reaching for a kunai in his kunai holster while his other pushed Sasuke behind him, his body adopting a protective stance.

The man he found himself looking at was nothing if not grotesque, the head clearly mismatched with the obese body. And he was frowning.

Itachi's eyes widened as he recognized that particular head.

"You're…_Hidan_," he hissed murderously, flashes of crimson blood flying through the air coming to mind. He saw Sakura fall, again and again, to the ground in slow motion, blood pooling around her.

Instantly, a kunai appeared in his hand, and, knuckles white, he made to attack him, only to be stopped by the younger version of the one who had almost been killed by the Jashinist. The irony was not lost on him.

"Iie! Please! Please don't!" she cried out, arms extended to either side of her, standing resolutely in front of the ninja she had come to trust and like.

"Haruno-san, please get out of the way," asked Itachi civilly, grinding his teeth together.

Though frightened by his dark tone, Sakura refused to budge.

"Iie! Atama-san's nice! He only protected me! Please don't hurt him!" she begged, emerald eyes wide and teary.

Itachi wanted to resist that look more than anything, he really did, but he couldn't help but superpose the image of his dear medic over that of the child in front of him. Would he be able to say no, if she asked him with eyes like those?

"Fine," he growled at length. "You two will come with me. _You_," he nearly spat at Hidan, "I don't trust you in the least. I will keep an eye on you, and believe me when I say that I will make your head roll if you give me even the beginning of a reason to."

As a ninja, he knew well enough how to endure unpleasant things. But he also knew how to wait for things to turn in his favour. He only had to wait. It was, after all, inevitable that the nuke-nin would try something. Until then, he would bide his time.

-:-

Shikamaru, as an heir, had learned from a young age that if he was ever kidnapped, he had to wait for someone to save him. However, if he felt that he would not be rescued, he should try to escape as fast as possible, before injuries or fear depleted his strength.

He knew that on such a night, anyone that disappeared would probably be lost forever.

His cellmate, however, did not seem overly concerned about their situation. He was rather blasé about it all, and it made Shikamaru wonder what the boy had seen to be so confident that they could not leave even if they wanted to. Were their jailors really so strong and terrifying?

He had no idea, but then again, he had not had much contact with them. He did know that they were daring enough to retrieve him from his clan's estate and swift enough to do so with impunity. But what did that really tell him?

_They are very organized and determined, as well as ready to use any means necessary to achieve their goals. Their numbers are unknown, their individual strength and capacities equally unknown…_

He sighed. How troublesome. He much preferred to keep his strategies confined to a shogi board.

"Ne, Sai-san…" he drawled, turning his head in the general direction of his cellmate.

"Are you referring to me?" asked the other boy without any inflection in his voice.

"How troublesome. Who else could I be talking to in this place? There's only you and me." Annoyed at having had to explain such a simple thing, Shikamaru stayed silent for a moment. He eventually opened his mouth again, though, for he did not want 'Sai's' attention to fizzle into nonexistence once again. "How long have you been here?"

There was a long moment of silence as the thus-dubbed Sai pondered that question.

"I do not know."

_How troublesome._

Shikamaru, with that thought, found himself wondering if his companion knew _anything_.

He would have asked him about the schedule of the guards at that moment, but his keen ears caught a faint noise coming from beyond their cell door. He stopped himself short, mouth already half open, and his words died on his lips as he heard more clearly the clang of weapons clashing and distant yells of people fighting.

_Impossible. Could someone have found out about this place? But if so, who?_

He turned to Sai.

"It seems a fight has erupted outside. Has it ever happened before?"

"Iie. It hasn't," replied Sai calmly.

_Then there is a good chance that we may yet be rescued. We have to get ready in case the ones on the other side of that door are enemies._

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Next time, you'll see what Gai, Kisame and Jiraiya have been up to. Would you like me to actually write the scene of Danzo's torture?


	70. Escapes and Rescues

Sorry I'm late! RL has that annoying tendency to get in the way. This chapter, I hope, will be satisfying for everyone. I myself am quite happy with it. And I bet there are some things in there you won't be expecting. Hahaha.

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Kisame was at a disadvantage, fighting in a place as confined as the one he, Gai, and Jiraiya found themselves in. The walls and ceiling felt so close to his body; had the building been built this way to make attacks more difficult? Indeed, he couldn't swing Samehada around, and fighting at all was severely more difficult, since they pretty much had to trail one after the other, which meant that they could hardly move around. It was not a good situation to be in, and his companions were very much aware of that.

Their tense forms moved further into the building, expecting people to appear out of nowhere. Strangely, no one seemed to be around.

"This is not normal," murmured Jiraiya. "We're already two floors down. Logically, we should have encountered some sort of resistance by now."

"They're probably all over the village," murmured Kisame thoughtfully.

"But Sakura-sensei followed one of those unyouthful people here!" exclaimed Gai quietly—how he managed to do that, Kisame and Jiraiya didn't want to know. "Those beasts must be waiting for us further down!"

"The fewer we meet in here the better, anyway," murmured Kisame. He didn't feel right about the place. Everything in him screamed at him to get out of that mousetrap.

As if attracted by his thoughts, a shadow crept down from the ceiling to land a few meters in front of them while a door opened behind them, releasing another one.

_And so we are trapped._

-:-

Shino crossed his arms across his chest. After having inspected his cell, he had quickly come to the conclusion that the only way for him to get out was through the door. Which was locked.

He bent his head, closing his eyes, and thought long and hard. How would he get out of this room? There had to be a way. There was _always_ a way, even if that way wasn't always pleasant. But he wanted to get out of this room alive and preferably without injuries, which severely cut down on his choices.

Still…

A low buzzing under his clothes reminded him that he wasn't alone or without allies.

Indeed, he was a member of the Aburame Clan. His bugs always accompanied him, he thought as one of them peeked from under his pajama sleeve. He put his ear on the ground, listening for any activity outside his cell, and, once satisfied that no one was near, got to his feet quietly. He crept to his cell door and extended a finger just under the keyhole.

"Come on," he said to his bug. "Get in and press on the lever to unlock the door."

The bug agitated its antennas and quickly crawled over his hand and into the keyhole. He waited with bated breath. Any second now, he would hear a click and he would be free.

But a moment later, the bug came out, antennas down in dejection, and crawled back on his hand slowly.

"So this was not a real keyhole…figures…because it would be too easy to get out then."

Still, that door had to open some way. Which meant that there must be a real keyhole on the other side of that door. This time, though, he wouldn't take any chances.

He put his hand on the ground, allowing the bug to step down on the cool earth, where it was soon followed by a dozen more.

"Crawl under the door and find the keyhole on the other side. Unlock the door, push it open, and wait for me. Why? Because someone could be alerted that I'm trying to escape. You are my trump card."

He watched as their legs scrambled while they squeezed under the door. Now he only had to wait.

-:-

Kiba growled, refraining from ramming his body (again) into the door. He knew it wouldn't budge and it would only hurt him. His throbbing shoulder was testament to that.

He howled his rage at being so helpless and stalked around his cell. Walking in circles didn't help, but he had no intention of punching a wall again and clutching his torn knuckles against his chest while he jumped on one foot was _not_ tempting.

Suddenly, he stopped pacing, his keen ears catching a soft sound coming from the door. He frowned, eyes narrowing, as he looked down at the base of the door. He couldn't see anything. Frown deepening, he crouched in front of the heavy slab of steel and narrowed his eyes even more, trying to see something, anything. Soon, he saw some movement and zoomed in on that one spot that was seemingly alive. Moments later, a bug's head wiggled out of the small interstice, followed soon enough by the rest of its body. He halted his reflex to squish it just in time as he recognized one of the Aburame bugs and smirked wildly.

"Well, well. Seems that bug bastard's got some resources, ne? If he escaped, tell him to get me out!"

The bug seemed to look at him in understanding, and soon disappeared from his sight. Within the moment, he heard the door unlock and groaned to himself.

"Damn it, he really did escape before me, that bastard!"

-:-

Let it not be said that Ibiki wasn't a true master of his art. Art, indeed, for that was what torture had become to him. How to make someone talk with a minimum of work, in a minimum of time. And despite the room he was in being bereft of his usual torture devices, he was not deprived of ways to make Danzo talk.

His imagination was fertile and he did have on him the weapons he had originally left Konoha with. And that was more than enough.

He looked at the helpless man he had bound in a chair and slowly reached for his weapons' pouch, knowing the older man's gaze remained transfixed on his hands. He did so deliberately, well aware that fear of the pain to come was often greater than the pain itself. The human mind reacted very strongly to any perceived threat, and the victims' imagination did the rest…

And Danzo knew that Ibiki was a man capable of inflicting pain in ways even he couldn't imagine.

"Do you know, Danzo-san, that even in my profession, medical skills are very much valorized?" asked Ibiki idly, taking a single kunai out of his pouch. He twirled it expertly between his fingers and approached the old man. Slowly, ostensibly slowly, he crouched and brought it to Danzo's right hand. "It's not because we have to heal our prisoners." He let the tip of the senbon rest lightly where nail met flesh at the tip of Danzo's index and gently pushed it under the nail, keeping the old man's hand still as he trashed in his seat to keep him from dislodging the thin metal that was burning it way into his finger.

Panting, Danzo looked at Ibiki, only noticing late that he had closed his eyes against the pain when he realized that the sharp pain had faded to a dull ache—Ibiki had stopped pushing the senbon in and waited for the Elder to look at him. And once he had the traitor's undivided attention, he let his hand glow green.

"Iie, Danzo-san. It's because chakra can amplify the pain of a wound tenfold when used by someone who intends to inflict pain."

And then he let his chakra run down the senbon and into the recent wound.

And Danzo yelled until his voice cracked.

-:-

Thanks to Kiba's nose, they managed to find several of their friends, and it didn't escape their notice that they were all members of ninja clans. It surprised them that they didn't encounter anyone, but Shino noticed that there were several people two floors above them, which explained the lack of security at their level. It also meant that they would have to fight to get out.

"I hear sounds of a fight," said Kiba once they approached the stairs leading, they noticed instantly, solely upstairs.

"How troublesome."

"Shut up, baka! While they fight, we can slip past them!" barked Kiba at the lazy genius.

"P-Please don't fight," chimed in Hinata hesitantly, clinging to Kiba.

"Those people upstairs are probably allies. Why? Because one group must be our kidnappers, meaning the other is, probably, allies. Whether they are here to rescue us or not is another matter entirely," pointed out Shino.

"Should we try to go past them anyway?" asked Ino.

"That won't work anyway," said Sai flatly, dampening everyone's spirits. "You won't be able to escape from here."

"Shut up, teme! We _will_ escape, just you wait an' see!" growled Kiba, bopping him over the head before dragging him up the stairs.

-:-

Kisame had felt a group of chakra signatures closing in on them, and was preparing to face a number of enemies when the man he had punched in that direction was suddenly engulfed in a writhing mass of darkness. And that mass seemed to buzz loudly.

_Bugs?_ he wondered before his attention was brought back to the sword strapped to his back.

"What the hell, Samehada, are you _whining?_" he exclaimed, speechless.

And yup, it was. It was, because the precious chakra his master had been denying him was eaten up instead by _bugs_. It was outrageous and such a loss to give that chakra to mere _insects!_ Kisame wisely kept from pointing out that as an _object_, Samehada really didn't have the right to say anything. Even if it was an object of murder.

But hell…someone had a technique so similar to his, huh? He liked that.

He stepped over the soon-to-be-comatose ninja and crouched in front of the group of kids who had suddenly appeared, disturbing the ongoing fights. Many of them cringed at his appearance—well, he could understand that, really—but they stood their ground, a few boys standing in front of the girls in a protective stance. They wouldn't have stood a chance against him, that they all knew, but it was the thought that counted.

"Yo. Which one of you did that nifty jutsu?" he asked, keeping an eye out for more potential enemies.

"I did," replied Shino rather needlessly as his bugs crawled back under his clothes.

"Nice one. Hijutsu: Mushidama, was it?" said the blue man, trying to remember the words he had barely heard before he had seen his prey be engulfed in a cocoon of chakra-sucking bugs. "I like it. You've got potential, kid. Now get out of the way before you get hit by a stray weapon."

He herded them into a nearby empty room, their fuss dying out as they realized that both Jiraiya and Gai approved of the move, and closed the door, warning them that they would get them out when the coast was clear.

Just before the door closed, warding off any danger, they saw a row of kunai embed themselves in the man's side.

And then there was the loud thud of something heavy hitting the floor behind the door. Something heavy like a body.

-:-

When Ibiki got out of the room, the Sandaime was waiting for him, smoking calmly. That is, if you didn't take into account the hard glint in his eyes or the sharpness of his set jaw and tense shoulders.

The old man was looking straight at the door as he closed it and looked him up and down, probably surprised to see a minimal amount of blood on his clothes in comparison to the loud screams of anguished pain that must have got through the door.

"Tell me you've got good news for me, Morino-san," he said, blowing a thin cloud of smoke into the air.

The only answer Ibiki gave him was to hand him a folded piece of paper. The Hokage opened it, looked at its contents, and nodded. A moment later, he was dispatching a group of ANBU at the indicated location.

Ibiki noticed that not once had his leader asked about the state of the broken man he had left in the other room, nor had his eyes strayed to the door in regret, testament to the cold fury that coursed through the Sandaime Hokage's veins at the moment.

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No Sakura in this one…Sorry! I swear she'll be there next time! About Kisame…you'll have to wait and see, but don't hurt me! Please? (author makes puppy eyes at the armed readers)

And a little translation of Shino's technique.

Hijutsu: Mushidama : Secret Technique: Insect Sphere


	71. Injuries and Those Who Heal Them

Happy Easter, everybody! Wait, is anyone even gonna read this during this weekend? Maybe those of you who don't come from an Occidental background? Hm…Anyway, you've got an extra long chapter this time, and I swear you're not gonna expect what's in there. And you'll probably want to kill me at some point, too. But remember that I promised a happy ending! I'll let you read, now. Love you guys!

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Hidan, much to his own surprise, remained relatively calm as he followed Itachi with Sakura. He didn't care for either of the black-haired boys, but apparently, Sakura did. And she cared much more than he liked for the younger one.

And it annoyed him.

So he couldn't help but grouse at her when he caught her eyeing the boy yet again. Did she even know what subtlety meant?

"Ne, girl why don't you fucking talk to him already instead of glancing at him all the time and blushing like a damn virgin?" he exclaimed, causing the girl's head to whip around instantly with a furious blush on her cheeks.

She gaped like a fish for a few long seconds, then exclaimed, "Atama-san, you idiot!" and took off in a blind sprint, too embarrassed to face her long-time crush.

He stood frozen for but a second before running after her, cursing all the while her idiocy—she shouldn't have run away alone in that dangerous time, and why the hell had she even dashed off after calling him an idiot?; Itachi and Sasuke followed slightly behind.

-:-

The young girl ran blindly for but a few blocks before pain flared in her back and her legs stopped functioning, leaving her sprawled on the ground, struck down by an invisible force. Pain so intense she couldn't emit a sound flared in her, caught in her throat, and spread to every last nerve ending. Panting for breath, she felt her world become blurry—from fear, exhaustion, blood loss, tears? She didn't know. Maybe all of them.

Tears running down her cheeks, feeling completely helpless, trapped in a painful body that wouldn't move, she felt her body heave uncontrollably as sobs racked her small frame.

-:-

By the time the three males came upon the scene, but a few scant moments later, Sakura had already lost consciousness due to shock and blood loss.

As Itachi gently made Sasuke turn around to spare him the bloody sight, Hidan swiftly kneeled next to the broken girl, taking care not to touch her injuries.

He took a look at the shuriken embedded deeply in the pinkette's back and felt his blood boil. Hadn't he said before that he was the only one allowed to hurt her?

He knew that she hadn't been targeted specifically; the various weapons scattered around the area attested to that, as well as the two ninja fighting on the rooftops a small ways away. Still, that didn't keep his rage at bay. He was not one to listen much to rationality whenever blood was concerned, and this time was no different.

He was quite ready to slaughter the two ninja—whichever one of them had unwittingly struck down Sakura did not matter, he would readily murder a thousand men to appease that rage that kept building inside him—but a few short words stopped him short.

"If you really care for her, shouldn't you try to save her instead of venting your anger?"

He whirled around, baring her teeth at the Uchiha heir in an animalistic show of mindless anger.

"Shut up, you fuckin' heathen!" he snarled, eyes flashing.

"Besides, that corpse you're using is already rotting. If you go, maybe _you_ will be the one struck down since your movements are only going to get slower and slower. Shouldn't you use your time wisely?"

"What do you know, you bastard?" retorted Hidan furiously. "In this place, where could we even find a medic? I'm a fuckin' immortal! I can't heal shit 'cause I don't need to heal myself! And it's fuckin' obvious that with those injuries, if someone less knowledgeable in medicine that a medic or a doctor treats her, she'll lose her life anyway, never mind her legs! Her spine has been sliced through, for fuck's sake!"

Itachi didn't hesitate. Something had occurred to him, a way to save the girl, and he knew that what he was about to say was not wrong.

"There _is_ a way to find a medic, a way that you alone may use."

That _did_ make Hidan stop short.

"Speak, then, before I rip your fucking mouth open!"

"I studied you after you encountered Sakura-sensei, and I seem to recall that once you have taken a sample of someone's blood, you are able to track them down."

He left it at that. Let the criminal make up his mind.

"You bastard, you truly _are_ a genius!"

-:-

Kisame almost hit himself for being careless enough to get hit in the flanks while he closed the door behind the kids. The kunai sticking out between his ribs were mostly annoying, but they could put his health in danger if they did more damage than they did currently. He could feel one of them just grazing his right lung, and quickly yanked it out before it could pierce it. It would not do to choke on his own blood when he could avoid it. He preferred to bleed some internally now rather than risk his life later on.

And after all, he knew there was a medic waiting for him to come back just outside of the building.

Getting up, he clutched the kunai in one hand and smirked at the man who had suddenly appeared to take him out.

"Ya shoulda made sure that you killed me when you shot these pointy things at me," he growled, and flung the kunai back at its previous owner. That visit to the blind medic would have to wait until he was finished dealing with the annoyances around.

-:-

Sakura was monitoring Naruto's state when the dull throbbing at the back of her head steadily expanded at a breakneck speed to engulf her whole brain. She grasped her head with both hands, directing soothing healing chakra to ease some of the pressure, but knew realistically that it would not do much.

Apparently, her younger self was coming this way.

_Isn't she supposed to be in one of the shelters? Did something go wrong?_

Managing to distance herself somewhat from the pain, she wondered what trouble had sprung up. Was her younger self coming this way purposely or fortuitously?

_Yeah…Guess I'll wait and see._

Curious, she stretched her senses and soon found the young girl's chakra signature coming her way; what surprised her was not finding Hidan's accompanied hers, for the girl had refused to part with the severed head, but rather that both Itachi's and Sasuke's were there too. She wondered what Sasuke was doing out of the compound on such a night, even if Itachi was with him. Knowing the older Uchiha, he would have taken Sasuke back to the compound immediately. Why hadn't he done so?

_What the hell is going on?_

She waited with bated breath, now sure that they were coming for her. She didn't know how they had managed to track her down and frankly, she didn't care at the moment—though she guessed she hadn't exactly been subtle in her movements, so this could explain that; she only wanted to assuage her fears before her imagination ran wild, spurred on by her worries.

In the end, she was still left floundering as the group made their way to her. The sight of the criminal astonished her for but a moment before she jumped to her feet upon realizing her younger self lay broken in his borrowed arms.

"What happened?" she asked, voice cracking as worry colored it.

She reached for the young girl before coming to a stop suddenly, realizing that should she touch her, her heart would stop instantly.

A small boy rushed at her, and she found her arms full of a softly crying Sasuke. Gathering him against her, she gently shushed her, head lifting in Itachi's direction in a silent question.

"She's been struck down by a fuckin' volley of strain shuriken, bitch!" spat Hidan. "Heal her already instead of fuckin' askin' questions!"

"I…" she gulped, trying to calm down as Hidan carefully placed the bloodied body on the ground.

"I'm sorry, sensei," said Itachi gently, understanding why her heart had just leapt in her throat. "We didn't have time to find another medic."

"I know, I…Oh Kami-sama, why her?" she murmured rhetorically, approaching the still and pallid girl. Her hands trembled as she walked closer, and she clutched Sasuke a little closer against her.

Wordlessly, Itachi gently pried his little brother from her, leaving her room to work.

_Alright. I can do it…_she thought to herself, taking a few deep breaths to calm down and return to a state in which she would be able to work her magic safely. _I just have to make sure not to actually touch her._

"Itachi-san, kneel on her other side. You're the one who will move her if I need access to another part of her body. While I try to save her spine, stabilize her. You can do it, right?"

The Uchiha heir nodded firmly. "Hai. I know enough of the healing arts to do that much."

"Good. Then set to it."

-:-

Kisame, Gai and Jiraiya eventually managed to dispatch the last ninja and took a moment to relax, panting slightly. All of them were injured in some way or another, but fortunately, it seemed that they were not about to just collapse on the spot thanks to some injury.

"I can't sense anyone else in the building," said Jiraiya, "except those guys in there," he continued, pointing at the door behind which waited the kids and the ones they had rescued, "and a few others in different places a level below us. Probably cells."

"Yeah. They probably only stopped to liberate the people they knew and their cellmates, no one else," replied Kisame, putting a hand on his throbbing flank to staunch the flow of blood.

"I shall immediately go and liberate those poor souls!" exclaimed Gai with a bright smile and a thumbs up.

"I'll accompany you, just in case," said the Sannin. "Hoshigaki, take the kids out of here, and while you're at it, get Sakura-chan to check your torso."

"Didn't know you cared, old man," chuckled the nuke-nin, striding down the corridor to open the door he had warded before being struck in the ribs.

"I don't!" yelled Jiraiya at his back. "But my Sakura-chan does, so don't you dare make her worry needlessly!"

-:-

Itachi looked worriedly at Sakura as she worked on her younger self with a sense of urgency. Hidan and Sasuke were watching them closely, the former glaring holes in the back of the medic's head whereas Sasuke had yet to release the hold he had on his shirt.

No one spoke, as though they knew that breaking Sakura's concentration could be fatal. The medic was as pale as the unconscious girl, and sweating dangerously; if one looked closely, she was even trembling ever so slightly.

Healing without touch was a thing medics could do, but it really helped if they could touch their patient's body. It enabled them to sense exactly what was going on in their body and allowed them to adjust if need be. Without touching, this was also possible, but the concentration it required was taxing, and so medics usually touched their patient to allow their chakra to flow easily into their body. Unfortunately, this was impossible for Sakura. She could only let her hands hover as close as possible to her younger self's back, for if she touched her, her own heart would fail her and she would die.

Ba-thump, ba-thump.

Already, she could feel her heartbeat decelerating with each moment.

Ba-thump. Bathump.

Never pausing in her work, she wondered how much time she had before it slowed to a halt.

Ba-thump.

She felt the nerves slowly, ever so slowly reattach feebly.

Ba-thump.

Blood pounding in her ears, she strengthened the nerves with one hand while the other started to both staunch the blood leaking from another wound and close it simultaneously.

Ba-thump.

_Almost there. Come on now, I can't stop now or the nerves will sever once again._

Ba—thump.

Her hands shook, going from the slightest tremble to a full-on vibration. She was almost there!

Ba—thump.

The wound closed, leaving behind a pink scar. She moved on to another one, continuing her work on the spine through a hazy mind. Her surroundings were becoming blurry, sign that she was losing control over her sensory jutsu.

Ba—a—thump.

Heart leaping in her throat, she heaved, catching herself just before she bent forward enough to come into contact with the unconscious girl.

Ba—thump.

She was there, she was so close she could taste it. And she _could_ taste it. But why did it taste so metallic?

Ba—thump.

_There!_ _One last_—

Ba—… … … … … …

World coming to a stop, she didn't feel the strong blue arm that caught her just as she pitched forward and in one smooth move pulled her sharply away from the now safe child.

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Once again, I'm being cruel. Haha. I'll be seeing you all next week! Enjoy this long weekend, for those of you who celebrate Easter!


	72. Sunrise

Hey there! Sorry this was late in coming, but I'm kinda busy at the moment. I'm happy many of you read this story even though it was Easter Break, and I'm glad to announce I've hit the 3,000 reviews mark! And I know you all hate me right now, so I won't keep you from the story any longer. Read on, read on!

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There was a deep thud in her chest, her torso lifted off the ground in an arc, and suddenly she existed again. She took a deep breath, hyperventilated for a moment before she got her body back under control.

Hearing first came back to her in a buzz, then feeling. And there was a dull throb in her whole body. She groaned, and whatever she was lying on moved slightly in response.

"Chibi-sensei?" It took her a moment to realize that that was her.

She recognized that deep voice, and there was only one person who called her that.

"Ki…same-san?" she asked groggily.

"Yeah…"

"What…happened?" she slurred, her tongue a big bit of useless flesh in her mouth.

"You were _way_too close to the girl. I caught you just as you fell forward, but your heart did stop for a moment," he explained uncommonly gently for himself.

"Oh…" she wracked her brain with a frown and eventually remembered that she had indeed been working on her younger self. "Yeah…Is she alright?"

"_She _is. You did a good job. She's asleep at the moment, though. But _you_? I had to restart your heart with a good jolt of chakra!"

She smiled softly, tired. "Looks like I worried you, ne?"

"That you did, girl."

He shifted, and she noticed that her head was pillowed on his lap. "Damn right you did, you crazy girl." The intimate gesture was not lost on her, but she didn't have much time to think about it as Kisame gently helped her to sit up and Sasuke came running at her.

"Nee-chaaaaan!"

With her arms full of the young boy, she observed her surroundings. A few meters away, Hidan was poking her younger self to see if she was alright, Naruto was sleeping somewhere to her right, and Itachi was further away, talking to some ANBU. From what she could gather, some of them had gone into the building while Itachi debriefed the remaining ones on what had happened.

Gently shushing Sasuke and assuring him that she was fine—to which Kisame snorted—she got to her feet with some help from the nuke-nin and walked up to the group of ANBU, clutching the younger Uchiha close to her with Kisame close on her heels.

Itachi and the three ANBU turned to them as they approached, and the Uchiha heir put a hand on her forearm in the only gesture of comfort he could afford at the moment. Sakura smiled gently to wordlessly assuage his worries and listened as he recounted to her what had gone on during her loss of consciousness and in the Hokage Tower.

"After learning the kidnapping plan from Danzo-san, Hokage-sama sent a few ANBU platoons here. By that time, Hoshigaki-san was already out of the building with the kidnapped clan children. Most of the ANBU went inside to make sure the building was completely vacated, but some took the children to the Hokage Tower until everything is resolved in the village."

"Yeah…That's good. I guess I should go see the Hokage too…" she trailed off. _If only to tell him I'm here with two nuke-nin…_

"We shall escort you to the Hokage Tower," said one of the nameless ANBU. "Uchiha-san, can you handle the rest here?"

The elder Uchiha nodded, and Kisame scooped up a non-resisting Sakura in his arms—and then the younger Uchiha who didn't seem to want to be away from her at the moment—and headed for the tall tower in the distance, very much aware that his every move was being watched.

-:-

The Hokage looked almost frightening. His face was hard, his eyes even harder, and he looked every bit the commander that he really was. He had shed his grandfatherly persona and gone back to being a dangerous shinobi. Still, despite all that, he also looked older than ever. This whole night had taken a toll on him, that much was clear.

As they entered, he looked at them, still very much on guard, and narrowed his eyes.

"Eto…Hello, Hokage-sama," said Sakura sheepishly from where she was nestled in Kisame's arms.

"Sakura-sensei? What are you doing here?" he asked, surprised. He had heard that she had appeared in his village, but he did not expect her to come and see him now—not until everything had died down and she was sure no one was going to die from lack of medical help.

"If possible, I wish to go back out and help as many people as I can," she began, shushing Kisame when he grumbled that she should rest instead, "but there are things you must know. Things like the reason for which Danzo-san decided to attack Konoha…"

He observed her with scrutinizing eyes for a moment before nodding.

"I think that would be best. Can I trust that Hoshigaki-san will not harm any of the children?" he asked with a glance through the open door at the group of clan children who were huddled together in a room beyond the one they were in.

"Hai. I'll vouch for him," she replied firmly.

"Then let him and Sasuke-kun join them there while we discuss. Hoshigaki-san, if you would?"

Wordlessly, Kisame put Sakura down gently and strode to the other room, closing the door behind him with a last look at the tired pinkette.

As soon as they were alone, Sarutobi's hands moved into the signs needed for a privacy jutsu while Sakura sank into a chair next to his desk. Soon after, he sat down in his own chair on the other side of the large desk and motioned for her to speak with a wave of his hand.

"Let's see…Where to begin…I managed to escape from my kidnappers, as you've obviously realized, and I managed to get back to my village. As long as I was there, I couldn't be attacked, but when I accompanied Morino-san, Yamanaka-san, Itachi-san and Sakura-chan to Konoha, Danzo-san realized that he had to get rid of me before I came here, or else. But we fended off our attackers and came upon the mess that Konoha had become. I can only hypothesize that, afraid of what I could reveal in the event that I survived his attack, he decided to try to take over the village sooner rather than later."

Fingers steepled under his chin, the old man regarded her for a long moment.

"Indeed, he did try to kill me and attempted a coup d'état, but why would he feel so threatened by you?" he asked, even as a conversation from so long ago replayed in his mind, a conversation dating back to the day that she had asked for a loan from the village in front of the whole Council.

"Haven't you realized yet? _He's_ the one who had me kidnapped and who held me prisoner for more than a year," she said with a bitter smile.

"What do you have on him?" he asked calmly—this was not the time to lose his cool.

"Oh, I know plenty of dirty little secrets about him," she replied with a dismissing wave of her hand, "but the one he really didn't want me to divulge, I think, is the one about ROOT."

"ROOT?"

"Yeah. He created that ANBU unit. Mostly, they're just like regular ANBU, except that they are loyal only to him, so he can pretty much order them to do anything."

"So that's why I had reports of the enemies being ANBU…"he trailed off, stroking his chin pensively.

"Mmhm. But here comes the good part. Those ROOT people, they're actually orphans from the Kyuubi incident and the Third Shinobi War. He took them, brainwashed them, made them fight against one another until only the very best remained, and that's how he got his special unit."

"Kami-sama…"

She nodded sadly. The concept was horrifying.

"Still, there is one thing that I wish to know…"

"What is it?"

"How do you know all of this?"

At the very moment she opened her mouth, a group of ANBU came in, cutting her off before she could even begin to utter the first word of her explanation.

"What news do you have for me?" asked the Sandaime instantly.

"Phase Three is beginning."

"Phase—"

He was cut off by the pink-haired girl almost immediately.

"Get down!" yelled Sakura, tackling the old man to the ground from the side as a volley of kunai came flying at him, all of them embedding themselves in the chair he had just vacated or in the wall behind it.

Crashes and yells erupted from the room, on the other side of the desk, but the Hokage and Sakura stayed firmly down to avoid being hit while the ANBU hiding in the room for the Sandaime's protection got rid of the four ROOT members.

"Phase 3…If all else fails, get rid of the Hokage at all costs?" whispered Sakura. "Damn that man…"

A hand appeared above them, armed with a few shuriken, but with one kick, Sakura sent the desk flying up, making the man crash against the ceiling before it slammed back down next to them, and deflected the weapons as they rained down on them.

"Don't move, Hokage-sama," she urged the old man. "I already feel two of them are dead, a third one—the one that I punched, by the way—is dying, and the fourth one is…hmm…he feels is bad shape. Your men are good, Hokage-sama."

"Of course they are," he nearly scoffed. "That's why they're assigned to my protection."

"Hm…Good point."

The sounds of battle soon died down, and Sarutobi lifted his head in questioning, trying to see if everything was over with.

It seemed the Hokage's personal guards had managed to subdue everyone, and so Sakura got off the old man and helped him stand up. They found themselves looking at a scene of devastation, but all that mattered was that their side was the winner.

"Hey, look at that," said Sakura, pointing to the large windows. "The sun is coming up."

-:-

Omake

Kisame put Sasuke down on one of the cots, and the little boy, feeling the events of the night hit him hard, quickly rolled over and went to sleep. Most of the children had fallen asleep, but a few of them were still awake, namely the Nara boy and the boy-who-played-with-bugs.

"Sakura-sensei is alright if you're here, ne?" asked Shikamaru, looking bored—or was it tired? It was hard to tell with that kid.

"Yep. She'll be just fine. Especially if she decides to rest," replied Kisame, looking in amusement as the boy lay down on one of the cots, muttering that his sleep had been disturbed, and it was annoying.

"Hey, boy, pretty cool bugs you have there. Can I see them?" he asked Shino, somehow managing not to look like an overexcited kid at the prospect of seeing a technique similar to his. "They suck chakra, huh? Can they do anything else?" he asked curiously.

A few bugs poked their heads out of the boy's sleeves and looked up at him before buzzing out to come to him.

"Of course they can. That's because they are my family's secret technique," replied Shino, and proceeded to show him how he could spy on what was going on in the adjacent room.

"Oooh, I like how you think, boy," said Kisame with a shark grin, and they both listened intently to what whatever the Hokage and Sakura were talking about—surreptitiously, of course, for that's how ninja operated. And hell, they were curious—it was not healthy to keep all that curiosity all pent up inside them. Or so they told themselves to feel justified on spying on the leader of the village.

Sadly for them, they couldn't hear anything due to the privacy jutsu—but they did feel the floor shake at some point.

_Chibi-sensei, are you punching the ground or something?_

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This arc is pretty much over, as you can see. I'm just rounding things up here, but next week you'll get the beginning of a new arc! Aren't you happy?


	73. A Semblance of Normalcy

Hello my lovelies! I'm back with yet another new chapter for you. Hope you enjoy it! For those of you who wish I could write longer chapters, well, I'm sorry but 2,000 words per week is about all that I can manage with RL breathing down my neck. I could write one chapter of 8,000 words per month, but I prefer to write a fourth of that every week. Okay, next point on the program. I've received a flame from an anonymous reviewer last chapter. Since the person didn't have enough guts to actually log in before writing that flame, I'm forced to answer it here. Sorry, skip this part if you want to go to the actual chapter. Here goes: When you flame someone, at least log in first and be answerable for what you write! Don't hide anonymously because you're afraid of what the author might answer back! And I don't fucking want to hear from someone who can't even spell right that my writing sucks and that I should learn how to write! You clearly haven't the right to speak; that's called hypocrisy. And what the fuck are you doing telling me after my 72nd chapter that my writing sucks, you idiot? Why did you read more than 150K words of this story if it's so badly written?

Alright, I feel better after this Hidan-like rant. Do read on.

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Once the Hokage Tower was cleared of any and all ROOT members, Sarutobi gestured for Sakura to continue where she had left off.

With a sigh, Sakura took a seat on the desk since her chair had been destroyed by the previous fight. Crossing her legs Indian style, she wondered how to begin her tale and, more importantly, how not to appear incredibly insane.

"Alright…This is strictly confidential and not to be repeated. Can I count on you for that?" she asked with utmost seriousness.

"Unless it puts my village in danger, you have my word, sensei," he assured her.

"Okay…Eto…I guess you'd say my story begins…something like thirty years from now." She stopped for a moment, wincing internally as the Hokage looked at her with an inscrutable face. She could only hope he wasn't ready to have her undergo a psychological evaluation. "So…at the time, the Hidden Countries didn't look anything like they do now. The Fourth Shinobi War destroyed everything; so many people died in Madara's quest for power and immortality. Anyway. He's the one who made me blind. During a fight, the medical jutsu one of my friends used on me clashed with one of Madara's jutsu and I was thrown back in time. Thus here I am. For a while, I didn't know I had gone back in time and thought only my location had changed; that was when I didn't master my sensory jutsu—thanks to Jiraiya-san. In fact, I only realized that I was back in time when I met Uchiha Fugaku-san, because in my time, he was dead. Anyway, long story short, the reason why I know all kinds of secrets about Konoha is that before Konoha was pretty much destroyed in my time, I was the Godaime Hokage's apprentice and got to learn many of the dirty little secrets that make up a village. _That's_ why I knew about Danzo-san."

The Hokage looked at her silently for a long moment, trying to see if there was a chance she was lying, but the serious look on her face made it clear she wasn't. Somehow, her story must be true, but he admitted he couldn't imagine how a jutsu could have sent her back in time. He could only guess it was a forbidden jutsu, and a powerful one at that.

"Alright, sensei, I will believe you for now, but I expect more details later to corroborate your story."

"That's fair," she agreed with a small smile, "but know that many things have changed because of my appearance here."

"First, answer me this: is there any chance that Madara-san could have followed you here or could still follow you?"

"Iie. As I said, his jutsu clashed with my friend's. And he was dying when I was sent here," she assured him. Madara's jutsu could open a new dimension, but not a time portal.

"Good then. Am I right to assume that this Madara is Uchiha Madara-san?" he questioned.

"Hai, it is he. He managed to survive this long by taking over bodies."

The Hokage nodded pensively, thinking to himself that he wished things were simple for once.

"Alright," he sighed. "And why didn't you warn me about Danzo-san in the beginning?"

"Would you have believed me?" she asked with a self-deprecating laugh. "And I tried my best not to mess the timeline for so long…I'm still not sure that deliberately messing with it is a good idea, but…well, though when I first realized that I was back in time I wondered if I should commit suicide to keep from screwing up the timeline, now I have a reason to live, and…well, I decided that even if by changing things I wasn't sure that we could bring an end to Madara as we did in my time, at least I could try to keep so many people from dying, ne?"

He nodded, trying to imagine how she must have felt all this time, wondering whether she should just kill herself or try to make things better. How would he have acted?

"For now, please help my injured ninja, sensei, but make no mistake. I'll have you talk to me more about all of this."

Despite the harsh words, she smiled softly.

"Of course, Hokage-sama."

For now, she'd do what she did best.

-:-

The hospital was not quite overworked, but it was close. All the medics were tired, and they were more than amenable to accept help from a person they had previously thought was dead. They would have asked more questions, but she pointed out that really didn't have time for that at the moment, and so they kept to their healing.

At some point, she got so tired—in addition to all that had happened recently—that she began to totter.

_Come on! I can't relax now!_

A nurse, who had been working with her on her latest patient, frowned and called out to her.

"Sensei, you can take a break. I can handle it from here, so get some rest, ne?"

"But…What if…"

"I promise we'll call you if we really need your help. It's better to rest up some now than make a mistake later on because you're too tired to think, ne?"

Well, she couldn't really argue with that.

"Alright," she conceded. "I'll go and take a nap on the sofa in the nurses' break room. Be sure to wake me up if you need help for anything."

"I promise. Now go, you look like a breath of wind would make you fall over."

With a small smile and a wave, she left the room, swearing to herself that she would get up no more than an hour later.

-:-

Sakura was woken up by a commotion going on beyond the door to her resting place. Groaning, she cursed, wishing she could just go back to sleep for twelve hours straight.

"What's going on…" she muttered, getting up slowly.

Rubbing her temples, she dragged her tired body to the door and pushed it open.

"What's—Kisame-san? And…Itachi-san? What are the two of you doing here?"

The two males, who were arguing with two doctors and a nurse, turned around, their faces betraying the worry they had been feeling.

"Ah! Chibi-sensei! There you are! They wouldn't let us see you and they almost called security to have me thrown out!" exclaimed Kisame.

"Of course they would," replied Itachi calmly. "You're a nuke-nin."

"Pfft! Details! Anyway, are you alright? You left me alone with the brats!"

_Oh…Right…_

"Ano…Sorry, Kisame-san!" she said, bowing deeply.

"Nah…Don't worry about it," he said, waving the matter away. "Itachi-san came by the Hokage Tower to see you, and when he came to take a look at this brother, I learned that you were gone. 'Course I was pissed for a moment, but I can understand that you feel like you have to save everyone."

He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment when her smile became much gentler, not used to be on the receiving end of such tender emotions.

"Have you rested properly?" asked Itachi, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Un! I feel better!" she said firmly.

"Then shall we assist you?" he asked with a small smile of his own.

"Really?" she said, hopeful.

"I had some medical training at your village thanks to you, and I practiced on my own afterward, so I should be fine, and Hoshigaki-san too, ne?"

She turned to Kisame who looked away, embarrassed to be put in the spotlight.

"Well, yeah…When you disappeared, I researched medical jutsu so that if I found you in bad shape, I could help you…and it was useful tonight, too, so I guess if you need help I'll assist you."

"You guys…You're really the best!" she exclaimed, hugging them tightly.

-:-

By the time the hospital was able to go back to its regular rhythm, night had fallen once again. Everywhere, medics and nurses alike were sprawled on whatever flat surface they could find. Others still kept working on the less urgent cases.

In the corner of a room, Kisame, Sakura and Itachi were sprawled under a blanket Itachi had commandeered. It was actually Kisame who had ordered Sakura to rest when he had deemed she was too tired to do much good anymore. Actually, he had physically dragged her from her last patient and forced her to lie down. Sitting back to the wall, he put her head on his leg and, crossing his arms, told her to sleep already. Itachi had taken a blanket from the cupboard and covered them all with it as he took a small spot for himself.

They remained undisturbed till the morning, when a frantic Mikoto barged into the room.

"Itachi-kun! My son!"

And then she stopped short, arms still outstretched to grab her son and hold him close. She gaped, and a horrified cry left her lips as she realized that the now very much awake—or at least reacting—ninja were awake and that a certain well-known nuke-nin was in close proximity to her eldest child.

"Hoshigaki Kisame! Swordsman of the Mist! You shall tell me what you are doing here or perish by my hand!" she yelled, whipping a kunai out of her weapons pouch.

"Woah! Uchiha-san! Please calm down! It's fine, he's with me!" exclaimed Sakura, waving her hands nervously in front of her. She placed herself between Kisame and the Uchiha matriarch, trying to keep the latter from attacking the blue man. Of course, it would have been more effective if she was taller and he smaller, but it was the gesture that counted. And it seemed it was enough to make the other female actually stop for a moment.

"Sakura-sensei? You're actually alive! That's—But wait, why are you with him? I need an explanation!"

_Oh bother._

-:-

The Hokage took a whole day to interrogate her on anything that could prove her words to be true and on her knowledge of what was to come. As she had pointed out, many things had changed already, and while she had a general idea of what people were up to, it wasn't crystal clear anymore. And she did refuse to expand on some thoughts, as not all knowledge was good to know. Ibiki and Inoichi conducted the interrogation, able to perceive lies better than most people, ninja included, and at the end of the day, the Hokage finally was satisfied and let her go be grilled by the Uchiha matriarch.

The Uchiha compound was under reconstruction, as part of it had been burned to the ground during the attack two days ago, but it seemed life inside the compound was returning to its normal bustling self.

She waved to the people who greeted her as she passed. Now that the sun was setting, most of them were going home, but there were still a few who continued to work on their homes.

The house she was going to came into view, and her pace accelerated somewhat; she was looking forward to resting finally. Just as she was about to slide the front door open, it slid open on its own with a clack and she found herself face to face with Uchiha Mikoto.

"Sakura-sensei! At last!" she exclaimed, sounding exasperated and tired all at once.

"Ano…Uchiha-san…Is everything alright?" she asked uncertainly, wondering what kind of mess she was going to find on the other side of that door.

"Your father is seriously starting to get on my nerves! Rein him in, or I can't be held responsible for what I may do to him!" she growled, eyes no more than a slit, so angry was she.

"My father?" What was Jiraiya doing here? Didn't he have a perfectly fine apartment?

"Hai, your father! And he hasn't stopped bickering with Hoshigaki-san since he came here two hours ago! If this doesn't stop soon, I swear I'm going to sew their mouths shut with my ninja wire!"

The dangerous glint in Mikoto's eyes made Sakura nod quickly and head to the back of the house where, on the veranda, Kisame and Jiraiya were, as expected, going at it while Itachi looked on boredly, keeping Sasuke from poking the blue man.

"ALRIGHT BOYS, FUN TIME'S OVER!"

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More of a transition into the next ark than anything else, and boy was it boring to write, but some things have to be written no matter what for things to move on. More fun is coming next week, I swear.


	74. Preparations and Setting Things Straight

Last chapter in Konoha, people! Next time…Well, you'll just have to wait and see! Thanks for your reviews, everyone, they really make my day. Ingrid, sorry, I didn't get your email address, but yes, in a way, she can see again. More like she can sense the energy of the things around her, which helps her make sense of her surroundings.^^

Read on, read on…

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"Not that I mind you coming over to play a game of shogi with me, sensei, but I rather feel like you're trying to escape from something," murmured Shikaku, pushing a piece forward on the wooden board.

Sakura rolled from her back to her side and, supporting her head with one hand, answered his move with one of hers, prompting him to frown and return to the game.

"Pretty much," she admitted casually, rolling onto her back once more, cushioning her head with her hands. "You should have seen it. Jiji and Kisame-san were arguing as usual, and Itachi-san was trying to stop Sasuke-kun from getting his hand bitten off, and when I came in, Mikoto-sama was ready to murder them. "

Shikaku hummed noncommittally.

"Since I was tired myself, I yelled at them to stop and kinda ranted for a bit, and Mikoto-sama stood to the side, looking like a silent murderous deity, you know, with her eyes all squinted like that," she said, hands going to her eyes to show him before she remembered that she couldn't do such things anymore and let her hands fall back flatly. "Anyway, she glares awesomely. The guys stopped bickering like schoolgirls the moment she turned her sharingan on them. But then Mikoto-sama turned to me, and asked why Jiji was there. _And _Kisame-san. So I left them there to explain. For once, let them deal with the mess."

Shikaku nodded in understanding.

"Dealing with messes is so troublesome."

She couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out of her.

"Anyway, any chance I could sleep here tonight while they kill each other or do whatever mischief they're up to?" she asked hopefully.

"Well, it would be troublesome if my son found out you'd left without playing a game of shogi with him," muttered Shikaku, fingering a piece thoughtfully.

"Aaaah, I guess so. I can play a game with him tomorrow morning," she promised with a small amused smile.

-:-

"I hate you."

"Thank you, I hadn't guessed," retorted Kisame, rolling his eyes.

"You're a sick, sick man."

"Shut up, blue is my natural colour, I'm not choking or anything."

"I still say I'm gonna kill you in your sleep at some point."

"Only 'cause you can't do it upfront."

"Oh, shut up, you lolicon."

"Very mature of you, oh respectable Sannin."

"It's _your_ fault we have to walk over to the Nara compound at this ungodly hour of the morning," grouched Jiraiya, glaring heatedly at his companion.

"Yeah, right. You're the one who tried to stab me with chopsticks this morning. It's your fault Uchiha-sama threw us out. Can't you get a grip and stop trying to kill me at every occasion?"

"Oh, I can do that. The day you'll stop trying to get in my daughter's pants!" exclaimed Jiraiya, pointing an accusing finger at the taller man.

"You know, just because I only realized that I cared for her differently than I did when I first met her during the time she disappeared doesn't mean my feelings for her are any weaker than Uchiha Itachi-san's are."

"Say what you want, I still don't believe you. _You_ are a dangerous man who will only end up using her and hurting her. and that day, I'll hunt you down and make you wish you had never met her."

"Whatever. We're here."

Snorting and muttering under his breath, Jiraiya knocked at the door.

A woman answered him, looking at them boredly.

"Hai?"

"Ano…We're here to see Sakura-sensei," explained Jiraiya.

"…How troublesome."

She turned on her heels, clearly expecting them to follow—which they did, of course—and wandered deeper into the house. As they discovered more of the house, the soft murmur of conversation gradually grew louder, until they could hear suspicious "troublesome's."

Their lips twitched in amusement, and even more so when they found Sakura and Shikamaru bent over a shogi board. The young boy was clearly enjoying himself, if the look in his eyes was anything to go by, but Sakura was clearly getting desperate for a break.

"C'mon, Shikamaru-kun! I _need_ some breakfast! Can't we put this game on hold for a bit so we can get some food in our stomachs?" she whined gently.

"You have guests," announced the only other female in the room, making Sakura turn her head in their direction hopefully.

"Please!" she begged. "Tell me you'll save me from that little shogi-obsessed demon!"

"Actually, we're here to escort you back to the Uchiha compound. Despite everything—and I _did_ explain things to her, so give me some credit—Mikoto-san really appreciates you and she'd like to spend some time with you," explained Jiraiya.

"We can go when you're finished," said Kisame. "Mind if we eat while we wait?"

"Oooh, you cruel, cruel man," she growled. "You better give me some if you know what's good for you."

Kisame barked a laugh. "I'll even feed you myself if it makes you feel any better."

"Don't joke, I might just take you up on your offer," retorted Sakura tartly.

"Yeah? Then I guess I need to watch out for your teeth, ne?"

-:-

What Mikoto had in mind, apparently, was a good soak in the private baths of the Uchiha compound and, more to the point, those reserved for the clan leader's close family. Basically, this meant that they were lavishly furnished and quiet.

Sakura had barely had enough time to wave at Itachi, Sasuke and Fugaku before she had been pretty much hauled off by the Uchiha Matriarch, leaving the males behind.

She couldn't really feel upset at her, however, for the soak in the hot spring's deliciously hot water was doing wonders for her tired muscles.

"So, sensei…" began Mikoto rather ominously once they settled comfortably in the water. "What is this I hear about accepting two courtships at once?"

Sakura cringed, reading correctly the underlying "Is my son not good enough?" question.

"Eto…Itachi-san and Kisame-san…When I managed to escape and returned home…they argued. And they fought over me. And I admit, I thought they would battle it out in true ninja fashion, but…they ended up agreeing to…share me. And at first…at first, I was thrown off. But…they grew on me, the both of them. I got used to being alone, and then people started to flock toward me, some only coming and going…and now the two of them…they've got my back," she exclaimed softly. "And those two…I can only imagine living without them by my side with difficulty at present," she sighed, sliding in the water until her nose rested just above its surface. "Does that offend you? Am I…Am I a bad person for feeling that way?" she asked vulnerably.

This time, it was Mikoto's turn to sigh, and she took a long time to answer, during which Sakura fretted and sweated tremendously.

"I suppose…I can understand," she said at long last, as though her every word cost her. "I may not like it, but my son made his choice, and it is my duty as his mother to respect it. In my clan, sensei, we teach our children to assume their choices. If my son comes to regret his, I will be there to support him. Until then, I will stand back and watch things unfold."

The glare Mikoto sent her clearly portrayed her seriousness in the matter. Answering that seriousness was the least she could do, so with every ounce of severity she had in her, she replied to the other woman that she would live to make sure Itachi never regretted his decision.

"Despite the way things worke out, I'm glad he chose you and you him, sensei," said Mikoto at last, closing her eyes just as her words closed the discussion.

-:-

Meanwhile, Jiraiya, Itachi and Kisame worked on another problem, that one still concerning a pinkette, but a different one. Well, sort of.

Doubtful as ever when it came to Jiraiya, Kisame couldn't help but voice his skepticism out loud.

"Eh…Are you sure that'd work, jii-san?"

The skepticism was so strong in his tone that even Itachi frowned at him, while Jiraiya muttered that despite his womanizing ways, he was a fuinjutsu master, thank you very much. Putting his hands up in surrender, Kisame stepped back and let the fuinjutsu master have his space. He sat down next to Itachi who only glanced at him from the corner of his eyes before going back to study the signs that Jiraiya was currently painting on a large blank canvas.

"What kind of seal are you trying to create, Jiraiya-sama?" he asked calmly, nothing in his tone belying his curiosity.

Used to such behaviour from all Uchiha, Jiraiya didn't bat an eye at the rather cool tone.

"This is…something necessary. I have thought long and hard about this all day yesterday, and I decided that this would suit my purposes. You do know that the younger Sakura got quite friendly with Hidan, the very one who tried to kill my daughter, ne?" At their nods, he continued. "Well, that child doesn't want to get separated from 'that poor lonely head.' I had to find a way to make that safe. For now, the civilian body Hidan borrowed decayed too much for him to use it, and he was taken for interrogation, but the question was: what to do with an immortal? He didn't appear all that concerned about staying with the younger Sakura, but I have my doubts. An S-class nuke-nin willing to stay with a child? Ha!" he snorted, making a large swishing movement on the paper with his brush. "So I thought of a way to subdue him."

"A seal?" asked Itachi.

"Hai, a seal. A seal that I'll tattoo on the cut part of his neck as soon as I can get my hands on his head, so that even if his head gets cut off, the seal will have permeated into his neck and won't disappear."

"Good idea," agreed Kisame. "Still, won't that seal have to restrain him specifically from going on a rampage?"

"I thought about that," retorted Jiraiya, annoyed at Kisame for being him and for assuming that he may not have thought of everything. "This is why I came up with a very specific seal. Basically, this will prevent him from doing anything that may pain Sakura-chan physically or psychologically. And since both the Sakura he has a link with and my daughter are in effectiveness the same person, he won't be able to do anything that may hurt anyone here even if he manages to corrupt the younger pinkette because it would then hurt my Sakura-chan, and _she_ won't be influenced that easily. So once he gets his body back—you'll have to tell me where you've hidden it, by the way, Hoshigaki-san—this village will gain one more talented ninja who'll be pretty much forced to defend it or else. Two birds with one stone," he finished, rather proud of himself, looking at each other, Kisame and Itachi nodded to each other in agreement. That was indeed promising and a fitting punishment, especially considering how much Hidan hated any kind of authority.

"Well, well, I'm impressed," admitted Kisame.

"Oh, shut up, you."

-:-

By the time Sakura and Mikoto went out of the private bathhouse, feeling content and rested, the seal was well on its way to be created and Sakura got to see it and examine it under the watchful eyes of the Sannin.

"What do you say? Are you alright with this?" asked Jiraiya. "Since he tried to kill you, if you'd rather not have him near your younger self…"

"Iie. That's fine. Let him protect her. I believe this seal will be punishment enough. And speaking of seals, I'd like you to redo one for me, since I ripped my skin off when I escaped."

"Alright. Same place?"

"If you please. And look into a way for me to store chakra in case that unfortunate situation happens again?"

"Sure."

"Great! You're the best!"

It was not long after that they all felt an immense chakra source heading their way.

"Is that…?" asked Kisame, stopping himself before he could finish his question.

"Yep. I believe that's my lift."

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Much more fun than last chapter, right? Anyway, tell me what you thought!


	75. Who's Leaving?

Hello everyone. I'm very pleased with this chapter. You'll notice I incorporated several items of Japanese culture, but I do explain them in this, so you shouldn't be too confused. If you still are, do send me a message and I'll explain further. Enjoy the chapter!

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Sakura was smiling softly as she went outside. She felt her blood sing in her veins in excitement, but she forced herself to calm down. She was not going to learn just yet. First she had to greet the gigantic bat properly.

As opposed to what such a large frame would usually allow, the bat's landing on top of the Hokage Tower was surprisingly graceful. Shaking her head warmly, Sakura hopped from roof to roof until she got to the tower, then decided to take the stairs instead of scaling its walls like she was sorely tempted to do. No need to annoy the Hokage at present. He already wasn't feeling too good about her causing indirectly all the ruckus that had happened a scant few nights before.

The bat looked amused at her when she finally made it onto the roof, but Sakura bit the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sarcastic comment—now _really_ wasn't the time—and instead bowed low to the ancient being to show her respect, and promptly bowed a second time to the Sandaime. Apparently, it was the right move to do, for his countenance lightened up considerably. He still frowned, though, she noticed as she exchanged greetings with him while the group that had followed her bowed to Machi and vice versa.

"Machi-sama. I was hoping to have time to return to my village before you came for me so you would not have to look for me," she said with a second bow, this one of forgiveness.

""'Tis no problem, human youngling. A fortnight I said I would give thee, and a fortnight I gave thee. As for the matter of thine location, fear not, little one, for I did not lose sight of it for one moment," replied the gigantic bat with a bow, showing her respect for the diminutive medic. As Sakura pondered on her words, a small gray bat fluttered up to her and perched itself on her shoulder. She caressed it from neck to belly gently with the back of a finger, smiling softly when the bat rubbed its head against her cheek with a gentle croon. "Mine childe, Chiyoko-chan, hath been following thee discreetly to keep me informed of thy situation."

"Chiyoko-chan, ne?" said Sakura thoughtfully, thinking over the implications of the name of the delicate furry creature. "Indeed, she's been very discreet. I did not sense her, or if I did, I did not give her much thought—well, not any more than I did any other animal."

"Aa, she is most talented in the art of spying and gathering information without anybody being none the wiser," replied Machi with a fond smile. "Do take care of her, humanling, for she shall be the one to initiate thee in our art."

"Is that so?" asked Sakura with a smile, feeling giddy inside at the thought of what that bat would teach her. "I'm honored to make your acquaintance, Chiyoko-chan. Or should I call you sensei?"

"Likewise, sensei. Please call me Chiyoko-chan, everyone does."

The bat balanced from one foot to the other, humming under her breath gently.

"Art thou ready to leave, little one?" asked the gigantic beast.

"There are still a few details I have to take care of here, Machi-sama. Could it be possible for you to wait for just a bit while I settle everything?"

"Aa, waiting a little more will not make much difference to me," agreed the ancient bat, "though please be swift about it, my presence here shall not be secret very long."

"Of course," promised Sakura with a last bow.

She turned to the group that had followed her but stayed behind in respectful silence and said, "Well…I guess it's time for goodbyes, ne?"

Nodding like the others, Kisame said, "Ne, chibi-sensei, I don't like that you're going alone. I trust these bats, but it still doesn't sit well with me, so with Machi-sama's permission, I'll accompany you. Not like I've got better places to be, anyway."

The great beast looked up from her conversation with the Hokage when Kisame looked in her direction and nodded her approval, making the tall man smile widely.

"Thanks, Kisame-san. It'll be nice to have some company, I imagine."

Itachi stayed silent, clenching his jaw. He knew that with the state the village was in, the Hokage wouldn't agree to him following her to the bats' dimension. But he wished, just as much as Kisame, to be able to accompany her, and it was killing him to stay silent.

Above his head, Mikoto and Fugaku exchanged long, telling glances.

They trailed away in direction of said Hokage calmly, leaving behind the quarrelling men—apparently, Jiraiya was _very much_ against Kisame being left alone with Sakura.

"Hokage-sama," began Mikoto after they bowed to both the Sandaime and the gigantic beast. "It appears that Sakura-sensei is going away for a while. Would it be possible for our Itachi-kun to accompany her?"

The old man sighed. "I'm sorry, Uchiha-san. As things are now, even if I've received a report on the situation from your son, and Yamanaka-san and Morino-san both gave me identical reports of their own, I can't allow Itachi-kun to leave. The village is weakened at the moment and I have to get things back on track properly before I can allow any of my ninja to leave."

Mikoto glanced to the side, looking sadly at her son. Her heart ached for him. He looked so frail and alone to her eyes…She couldn't allow Sakura to slip through his fingers, not now that he had finally won her over. It would break him. She looked at her husband, silently pleading for him to do something, to say anything to change the Hokage's mind.

"Hokage-sama, if you could make an exception, the Uchiha Clan would be most grateful. This is extremely important to the future of our clan," said Fugaku solemnly. He, too, liked the little medic and his son, even if he didn't show it outwardly. And if he allowed anything to come between them once again, he didn't think Itachi would forgive him. He already felt so much distance in their relationship…

"I understand, Uchiha-san," assured the Sandaime sadly but resolutely, "but I'm afraid it is still impossible. The village needs as many of its ninja to defend it, and especially high-ranking ninja, such as your son. I cannot let him leave without getting something from it."

The Uchiha Matriarch nodded in understanding. "Very well. I will buy him."

The Sandaime and her husband looked at her in confusion for a moment.

"If Itachi-kun was to leave on a mission, say, to protect Sakura-sensei, with me commissioning it, would it be acceptable then? I have a fund to be used for my sons in cases of emergency. I'll use it to buy his services for that mission. You can use the money to repair the village. Is that an amenable proposition?"

The Hokage contemplated her silently. Next to him, Machi spoke gently, "'Tis not for anyone to untie the red strings of Fate, Hokage-sama."

With a sigh, Sarutobi nodded. "Very well. He can go."

Smiling, Mikoto turned in direction of her son, having noticed he was looking at them and most probably reading on their lips the gist of their conversation. Instantly, his countenance lightened up, his eyes lighting up in joy. It made her heart at peace, knowing she had made the right decision to ensure her son's happiness. A hand fell on her shoulder, squeezing lightly, and she turned her face up to look at her husband's approving, warm dark eyes.

Yes. She had definitely made the right choice.

-:-

Sakura was rubbing her temples tiredly, trying to tune out the noisy fighting men when a hand settled on her shoulder, and she turned to Itachi, who looked perfectly serene.

"I'm coming with you, sensei," he said, and slowly approached her to deposit a soft kiss on her cheek, barely a brush of his lips, but it left her skin tingling. "I'm coming with you," he repeated ever so softly into her ear, hugging her close to him, as though he couldn't quite believe it himself.

"Hai…" she whispered, fingers digging into his back. "Hai, you are."

And it seemed to sum up everything they felt and more, and they found themselves quietly emotional. Later on, they would be grateful that no one interrupted them for this one special, timeless moment.

-:-

"What is it, Sakura-chan?"

"Look, jiji, I want you to promise me one thing," began Sakura very somberly.

Getting the hint, he nodded, motioning for her to elaborate.

"Naruto-kun. He's in a bad position right now. Due to the chaos he caused, no doubt some people are going to resent him even more than usual. I know that you left Konoha all those years ago to spy on the Akatsuki and make sure that no one would come looking for him to rip out the Kyuubi from inside him. I know that. But right now, he needs you here. So please, just…don't let his smile disappear."

-:-

Leaving Itachi and Kisame behind, the former to get his things ready and the latter to relax until she came back, Sakura headed to the hospital. There was in that place a person she very much wanted to see before she left.

She entered through the front doors and with a nod to the various nurses and medics bustling by, went straight for the reception desk.

"Excuse me," she said to the plump, harassed-looking woman sitting behind it, "I'd like to see one of your patients here."

"Certainly, dear," replied the middle-aged woman with a tired smile. "What's the name of the patient?"

"Uzumaki. Uzumaki Naruto-kun."

She had expected the smile to fall from the face of the woman, but found herself angered at it nonetheless. To hate someone because of something they were not responsible for…

She took a deep breath to steel her nerves.

"The room, please?" she asked civilly, if a bit more coldly than before.

"Ah, hai, hai. Eto…Room 44."

This time, she did frown. 44? It was obvious they had taken the boy there in hopes of seeing him die or something, for it was a room never used unless necessary: no one wanted a room number that was pronounced like 'death', after all.

"Thank you," she replied frigidly, heading straight for the bowels of the building.

Along the way, she took several deep, fortifying breaths to rein in her temper, but had she not met a certain someone a few rooms before Naruto's, she doubted she would have been so serene.

As she was nearing room 44, a door opened to her right, a laughing ninja and two busty nurses pouring from it. The ninja had a cast on his leg impeding his walk, so he stumbled more than anything else, but that didn't deter him in the least as he tried to grope the giggling nurses.

"What—Shiranui-san?" she exclaimed in aghast astonishment, prompting the trio to look at her. upon seeing her, the man smiled largely and limped up to her to engulf her in a hug.

"Sakura-sensei! The apple of my eye! Are you here to see me?" he asked brightly, wagging his eyebrows.

She punched him lightly on the arm in answer. "Iie, you lecher, I wasn't."

"Ah, you wound my heart so!" he exclaimed dramatically, faking a swoon that brought forth a wave a giggles from the two nurses. With a dark frown, Sakura sent them back to their duties, reprimanding them for acting frivolously when many people needed their assistance.

"Aww, sensei! Why'd you make them leave? They had promised me so many glorious things to tire my body in a good way! You simply _must _give me one of your amazing massages! Ya know, the ones with the medical chakra? Maaaan, those feel good! Say, who were you here to see, anyway?"

"Uzumaki Naruto-kun."

"Oh, him. Well, if you didn't like that I was disturbing the nurses, you _really_ won't like what _he's_ doing," he muttered, scratching the back of his head.

Before she had time to ask him what he meant by that, another door burst open, and this time, the nurses who were following their mischievous escaping patient weren't smiling in the least.

_Oh Kami-sama, why me? _she wondered even as Genma laughed heartily at the blonde-haired tornado that whirled past them to hide behind them.

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I really had fun with this one. I'm finally back in my element. Yay! Anyway, I swear they're leaving next time. Really.

And now, time for a little addition to our growing list of Japanese words and names:

Chiyoko: female name meaning 'child of a thousand generations'


	76. Travel Across Dimensions

Hello everybody! As promised, this time, Sakura does get to the bats' place. At long last. Well, I'm happy to say that even with busted knuckles, I managed to finish this chapter without being too late. I hope you're as happy as I am! Author out.

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Sakura found herself unsure of what to do. On one hand, she could protect Naruto and become the object of the ire of some real menacing nurses, or she could step aside and experience the sad life of the bad-older-sister-figure-who-has-disappointed-her-little-brother. He was already making puppy eyes at her back—one thing that was annoying about her sensory jutsu was that now, she couldn't pretend she wasn't seeing him.

"Ano…Please stay calm," she pleaded, putting her hands up in surrender, taking a step back, Naruto clinging to her shirt from behind her and making faces at the irate nurses.

"Get that boy back in there!" growled the most terrifying nurse of the trio, a matron woman with a deep voice and biceps that would make most men green with envy.

"Can we just talk this through?" asked Sakura with a small voice, kicking Genma's tibia when the man had the gall to snicker at her.

"No talking! He needs to go back in there now!"

Behind her, Naruto cried out, "Don't let 'em get me, nee-chan! They want to stick a needle in my butt!"

"Ah…Shots, ne? I'm sorry, Naruto-kun, but everyone needs to get their shots once in a while. If the nurses say it's time for you to get them, I can't interpose myself between them and you. Besides, a big guy like you can't be afraid of something as benign as needles, ne?"

"What does 'be-nign' means, nee-chan?" asked Naruto with a frown.

Slightly pushing him forward, she replied gently, "It means that it doesn't faze you. It means that you're grown up and can bear a little pain now, knowing how advantageous it'll be for you in the long run. If you don't get your shots, you could end up very sick. You wouldn't want me to worry about you, would you?" she asked, knowing she was being devious but feeling that was the best way to resolve things.

Of course, no male likes to be questioned about his masculinity, and Naruto was no exception. He puffed up, nose in the air with an air of bravado, and strutted up to the nurses who immediately grabbed him and headed back to his hospital room. The last thing Sakura heard before the door closed behind them was, "Hey, watch out where you're waving that s'ringe around! YEOUCH!"

Rolling his senbon from one corner of his mouth to another, Genma commented lightly, "Well…that went well. Hm…I swear I've never seen those nurses before, 'specially the big one. I'd remember a nurse with such a physique. Think she's new?"

She huffed, punching him lightly on the arm.

"Oh, come off it. That nurse, mammoth as she is, is probably _way_ more efficient than those two busty ladies who were hanging off of your every word."

"You gonna wait for him to come out of there?" asked Genma. "Might be a while, ya know?"

"Bah, I don't mind," replied Sakura, leaning against a wall. "I have to leave soon, so I was going to tell him goodbye, but since I don't have much to take with me, I can afford to wait a bit."

"Oho! Then mind if I wait with you? You could even give me a massage, you know, to make time go by faster?" asked the playboy with an inviting waggle of his eyebrows.

With a chuckle, feeling in a good mood, Sakura motioned for him to come closer and let healing chakra engulf her hands.

By the time Naruto came out of his room, rubbing his bum with a pout and a frown, Genma was pretty much putty in Sakura's hands. Eyes closed with a satisfied smile on his face, he was clearly enjoying Sakura's ministrations.

"Wha—no fair!" he cried out, crossing his arms over his chest. "How come he gets to feel good and I have to get shots? That's so unfair!"

Both Sakura and Genma chuckled at that, and the girl motioned for Naruto to come closer. She engulfed him into a hug and stayed that way for what felt like a long time.

"Aaaah…A little ray of sunshine…" she murmured happily before releasing him, as though she had finished charging her battery.

"O…nee-chan?"

"I have to go," she said clearly, knowing that if she tried to put it more gently, he would either not get the message or get even more upset than he was getting.

"Not agaaain!" he whined, frowning deeply. "You _always _do that!" he continued with an accusing glare.

"I know, I know. That's kinda what happens when you have duties to attend to."

"And what duty is it _now_?" asked Naruto, glare not lessening.

"Ano…protecting you and thousands of children like you from a maniac who desperately craves power. That'd be about it." There was a moment of silence. "Y'know, the reason why you lost control is also why people don't like you," she told him, choosing her words carefully to avoid going against the law that dictated one could not speak of the Kyuubi. "I've enlisted jiji to help you deal with that. He's gonna teach you how to control yourself and become stronger."

"Eeeeh, really? I'll be able to become a ninja?" asked the young boy with scintillating eyes.

"Eto…That'll be up to the both of you to decide. If you want jiji to make a ninja out of you, you'll have to convince him to do it. But I'm sure you'd be able to."

"Yeah! I'll do it! He's gonna teach me, just you wait! And then I'll become the greatest ninja ever! Believe it!"

With a chuckle, Sakura ruffled his hair affectionately. "I know. One day, you'll become Hokage. And you'll be a great one."

Genma made a little noise with his nose that wasn't quite a snort nor exactly a snore, but it was enough to rouse the two from their conversation. They turned to the man, stifling snorts and chuckles alike when they realized he was steadily drifting into sleep in a rather odd position.

"Ne…You wouldn't happen to have a permanent marker on you at the moment, would you?" asked Sakura with a mischievous grin. With a foxy grin of his own, Naruto brandished one triumphantly, and muffled chuckles echoed in the corridor as they set to drawing on the sleeping ninja's face.

-:-

Sakura made one last stop before going back to the Hokage Tower. Actually, she didn't have to go far, as the person she had been wanting to see was in the hospital too, in a very secure ward.

She had been wondering if she should use a genjutsu to get past the guards when one of them left his post and walked straight past her, murmuring, "You have five minutes to go past my clone while I go to the vending machine to get a coffee."

She stared at his back with a secretive smile and, shaking her head, snuck into the room past the clone who didn't even acknowledge her.

_Thank you, Kakashi-sensei._

Once in the room, she immediately spotted the person she wanted to see. The boy was sitting up in his bed, painting on a tablet supported by his bent knees. He was quite engrossed in his painting, only looking up from time to time out the window to observe the subject he was currently copying down to the last detail on his tablet.

She took a few steps in the room, bending down to gather a sketch from the floor.

"Your drawings are amazing," she murmured, tracing a line with her forefinger.

At the sound of her voice, the boy's painting brush ceased all movement and he looked up in her direction for the first time since she had entered his room.

"Hey," she said with a small wave of the hand not occupied by his drawing.

He blinked.

"Remember me?"

Once more, he blinked, before putting down his brush and tablet and slid wordlessly a croquis in her direction.

She reached for it, realizing within moments that the figure on the cot could be no one else but her.

"You do remember…"she breathed, feeling something clench her heart and throat emotionally. Somehow, to know that he hadn't forgotten her made her feel like an emotional teenager.

"You're that girl, the optimistic one who swore she would escape," he replied tonelessly.

"Hai," she said, feeling emotion clog her throat once more. "Hai, I am."

"So you did escape, after all."

"Hai, I did. I…Kami-sama, I'm so glad you're alright," she said, hands shaking around the drawing. "I was so afraid you'd be punished or, or…" Emotion clogged her throat completely, forcing her to stop talking lest her words be so strangled they become incomprehensible. She took a deep breath through her nose to calm down, exhaling it a moment later, feeling much calmer.

"I just…" Once more, she stopped herself, not knowing how to say what she wanted to convey. Words eluded her, annoying as it was. Finally, she approached his bed and, slowly enough that he could stop her if he so wanted, she reached and hugged him close to her chest. He remained still, probably not knowing how to react, but he listened to her heart beat beneath her clothes, and closed his eyes.

"My name is Sai," he said, voice barely more than a murmur. "I do not know who I once was, but this name allowed me to have a new life. I owe this to you."

This time she did cry, hugging him so tightly she was sure he would complain, but surprisingly, he didn't say a word and let her maelstrom of emotions wash over her quietly.

-:-

"Thou looketh finally at peace, little one," said Machi calmly when Sakura returned to the Hokage Tower.

"Yeah, I…I think I finally managed to turn that page on the events that made us meet," replied the young medic, feeling decidedly more at peace with the world.

"'Tis good, then."

"Un!" replied Sakura with a determined nod and a satisfied smile.

She heard Jiraiya and Kisame's bickering—which didn't surprise her in the least—before they appeared, accompanied by the silent but efficient Itachi.

"Shall we go?" asked Sakura with a soft smile.

And so it was that Machi carried off Sakura, Itachi, and Kisame.

-:-

The new dimension they found themselves in was not much different from the one they had just left. Or so they judged at first glance from the gigantic bat's back. There were trees, rivers, lakes and plains, and even mountains. What _was_ different, however, was that despite the villages and roads, they could see no one around.

"How strange…I can't see anybody," murmured Kisame with a frown.

"Of course not!" said Chiyoko, landing on his shoulder. "It's daylight. They're all sleeping!"

_Of course_, he thought to himself. _Bats sleep during the day and go out at night. And since there aren't any humans but us around, there's obviously no one else scurrying around._

He was distracted from his musings by Sakura's voice.

"Where are we going, exactly?"

"We're going to the mountains. That's where our biggest city is," replied Chiyoko, pointing with her right wing to the biggest mountain they could see, its peak covered in snow.

"I can't see any city," said Itachi, frowning. He squinted, trying to see better, but to no avail.

"That's 'cause it's an underground city! You'll see, it's an amazing place!" exclaimed Chiyoko, clearly giddy at the idea of returning home and seeing both friends and family. "Of course, you'll be staying at the best place: Machi-obaa-sama's mansion!"

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I wish I could say I am going back to sleep, but RL has other plans for me…sadly. Oh well, this sleep-deprived author will manage to survive. Reviews, please?


	77. Chisin, Underground City

Hello and sorry for the late posting. I didn't have much time to write this week, but things should go back to normal by Wednesday, so hopefully the next chapter will be out next Friday. Thanks for the lovely reviews! By the way, would anyone be interested to do some fanart for this story? I so like to see drawings of the things I imagine! (And I suck at drawing, so I won't even try to do it myself). Contact me if you are, I'll answer one question about this story if you do, and it can be about anything, even major plot points! (Yep, that's me shamelessly bribing you, haha) Enjoy, enjoy, do read on…

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The underground city, amusingly enough named Chishin, was both vast and bustling.

"Aren't they all supposed to be sleeping?" asked Kisame as they flew overhead, heading straight for an imposing structure at the apex of the city.

"In this city, time doesn't matter," replied Chiyoko. "Darkness reigns here, so everyone just acts as they see fit. Some don't sleep for days at a time."

"Ne…That moss…it gives everything a strange glow," murmured Itachi. "Is it native to this cave?"

"It isn't, per se. This cave itself is not natural. Like all things here, it was created by Machi-obaa-sama. However, it isn't us bats who brought it here, since we don't need light. If it can be of any use to you, then Fate has made it grow here for your benefit."

-:-

Machi's mansion was, for lack of a better word, huge. Well, it had to be, really, to house such a big creature, but the effect was rather overwhelming at first. The ceilings were so far above their heads upon disembarking from Machi's back that they felt like insects. But that was eclipsed quickly by the surprise that overtook them at the sight of a bat much less imposing than Machi but very large nonetheless. When they approached the towering beast, it bowed to them and thus spoke, "Welcome back, Machi-sama. Are these the guests I was to provide rooms for?"

"Hai. Please do prepare two more futons," replied Machi. "Humans, rest well today, for training starts on the morrow."

With that, Machi sent them on their way, disappearing through gigantic doors leading, presumably, to her personal quarters.

"Follow me, humans," said the servant, his voice echoing in the large room. On Sakura's shoulder, Chiyoko balanced from one foot to the other excitedly, muttering about how fun this was all going to be, making the pinkette chuckle warmly as she followed the larger bat.

The corridors were as dark as everything else in the underground city, but having expected human guests, the majordomo had prepared lanterns and held one before him as they went deeper into the mansion. Its light made yellow-orange glows on the walls, making the otherwise drab-looking corridors warm and inviting.

It was surprising that a mansion could be so bare, but they supposed being blind was not conducive to amassing objects of visual attractiveness.

As soon as they were left in their rooms, which were, as opposed to anything else they had seen, lavishly furnished—presumably to please their eyes—the three humans settled comfortably and discussed their plans.

"Chiyoko-chan," said Sakura while the males observed their surroundings, "since we have until tomorrow, can we look around the city in the meantime?"

"Sure," agreed the small bat easily. "You'll see that it isn't much different from human cities, but we have no interest for beautiful things, so the architecture may not be as interesting as the one you're used to."

"No matter, it's going to be interesting all the same," replied Sakura. "Itachi-san, Kisame-san, what about you?"

"Indeed," agreed Itachi, looking quietly interested. "This would be a most interesting venture."

"Yeah, like he said. I don't want to miss this, either," said Kisame.

"Shall we go, then? Or would you prefer to eat first?"

"Let's eat after our tour," decided Sakura.

Chiyoko led them out of the mansion, flying happily before them. To their amusement, she seemed so happy she was singing under her breath, and they could easily imagine her skipping if she were a human.

"Ne…She's really happy to be home, ne?" said Kisame, smirking to himself.

"Who wouldn't be?" replied Sakura with an understanding smile. She longed for her medical village and for original timeline, though that one was impossible. Kisame…she expected he, too, understood that longing very well. Nuke-nin, more than anyone, didn't have a place to call home. With that in mind, she took Kisame's hand in hers and tugged gently to get his attention.

"Ne…You know they say, 'Home is where the heart is.' Shall I be your home, then?"

With a hearty laugh, Kisame swooped her into his arms and pecked her on the lips.

"Then keep my heart safe, chibi-sensei. I'm counting on you."

Cheeks tinted pink, Sakura nodded and encircled his neck with an arm to keep her balance as he carried her in one arm like the child she resembled. She reached for Itachi with her unoccupied hand, fingers stretched out, but couldn't touch him due to the height she was now at.

With a small secretive smile, Itachi reached out and traced a single kanji on her plam with the tip of his finger, making her cheeks flare out brightly, much to his internal delight. He walked ahead, leaving behind a thoroughly embarrassed medic.

Sakura pulled her arm to her chest, closing her fingers on the precious word she could feel scorching her palm.

_Love…A word that from a lesser man would not hold as much weight._

There was a suspicious warmth in her chest, one that seemed to appear frequently whenever those males were around and demonstrated their feelings. In a subtle manner, yes, but demonstrated them nonetheless. And to one who knew how to read their signals, it was like receiving a coded love letter and deciphering it without knowing what it was, and then feeling so warm when your hopeful suspicions were confirmed. It made one feel special, privileged, and just a little bit spoiled.

-:-

The group looked at the city below them from their venture point, high above the rest of the city. Or so it would have been in a normal city. As it was, they were situated on a large outcrop, quite up in the air. If they looked at the highest points of the city, they could see various poles sticking out of the ceiling by pairs, supporting other poles perpendicular between them.

"What are those?" asked Kisame curiously, pointing at the bars. "They're like training bars or something, only, upside-down."

"Oh, that?" said Chiyoko, hovering in front of his face. "You know, beds and futons are all good and well, but there's nothing like a good old perch, let me assure you. The bigger ones are for the biggest bats, the smaller ones for the smaller bats, and so on and so forth."

"Interesting..." murmured Itachi.

"Much different from human cities, that's for sure," agreed the bat easily. "Alright, let's go down. As you can see, there aren't any streets leading down from the mansion, but since you're ninja, I don't think there'll be a problem, ne?"

Without another word, the bat swooped down into the cavern down below with a "Whoop!" of pure joy.

The ninja didn't need any more coercion to jump down the ledge and proceed to run down the walls, occasionally jumping on the roof of some mansion below them on their way to the floor of the cave.

Unsurprisingly, Chiyoko was waiting for them at the bottom, doing loops lazily.

"Follow me, humans," she chirped, "this way, this way!"

The marketplace was the first place they went to. Overall, it looked just like any other market, but the bats were generally calmer than humans, maybe due to the fact that they were creatures of obscurity who were used to being stealthy. Another thing they noticed was that most of the fruits were so ripe their skin broke at the slightest uncareful touch. Did bats like their fruits so ripe?

While that fascinated Sakura, who longed to learn more about the bats' lifestyle, Itachi and Kisame seemed more eager to see the training grounds or wherever else they would train during their stay.

Chiyoko agreed without fuss to take them there, so they headed to another part of the cave, weaving through the shopping district first, then gradually leaving the area for a more residential one, which they also left behind.

Soon, they saw a dark spot stand out from the cavern wall, a spot that grew larger and larger against the moss-covered wall the more they walked on, until the large entrance towered above them, large enough to let even the biggest of the bats through, and wide enough that they could fly through yet not catch the sides of the corridor with their wings fully deployed.

Looking back, they could just barely see Machi's mansion on the opposite wall, tall and strong yet seeming no bigger than a fingernail at this distance.

Chiyoko forged ahead, fully expecting them to follow despite the reduced luminosity. In fact, they noticed, the further on they walked, the less light there was, as though the luminescent moss didn't grow well—none at all, really—where they were going.

They walked for a long time, occasionally encountering side corridors leading to who knows where—Chiyoko never stopped in her flight, leaving them no choice but to follow her without assuaging their curiosity—until the corridor finally eased into another cavern, one they subconsciously felt was as large as the main one, but on the opposite site of the mountain.

"How big is this cavern?" asked Kisame, trying—unsuccessfully, at that—to get used to the total lack of light.

"Hm…'Bout as big as the main one, I'd say," answered Chiyoko from somewhere to their left. "Anyway, this is where you'll be training, most of the time. I guess you can't see anything, but that's just perfect. You'll be learning to be reliant on your other senses, until you can move around as well in complete darkness as in daylight. We're going to sharpen them here to perfection, then we'll begin the stealth techniques and I'll let you in on a few bats secrets. By the time we're done, you'll be able to completely mask your presence from anyone you're spying on, and have a few more tricks up your sleeves. Think of it as ninja training revisited, ne?"

Her words intrigued the trio, but since they would soon train anyway, questions could wait until later.

"Well, since this is one thing Machi-obaa-sama wanted me to work on with you, how about we take a little test?"

"A test?" asked Itachi, intrigued, mirrored by Kisame and Sakura.

"Nuhuh! You can't see it, but this place is actually filled with lots of plants and rocks and stuff, just like the outside! Sakura-sensei, I guess you can 'see' them, though, ne? Well, no matter! Since you couldn't sense me back when I was trailing you, I doubt you'd be able to sense me now if I cloaked my presence. So, here goes: your goal is to find me in this cave within…let's say two hours. I'll make it easy for you, too, but don't forget that there are lots of other bats around, so don't mistake them for me! And watch out for the time, it tends to fly by faster in the darkness! I'm off now, come after me in ten minutes!"

With a light flap of her wings, Chiyoko disappeared in the midst of the vegetation without so much as a leaf rustling in her path.

"Okaaaaay…" trailed off Kisame. "So, how are we going to do this? Think she's aiming for something there or just playing with us?"

"Well, there's no way we're going to find her if we all go our own way without communicating, since we could find the same bats over and over again," pointed out Itachi.

"Right. So we should all stay near enough that we can communicate. Teamwork is key," added Sakura.

"Teamwork…Think that's what she's after? To see if we can all work together?" asked the blue man.

"Maybe…We'll have to catch her first, though."

"Ne…With your sensory jutsu, did you manage to keep track of her?" said Kisame, turning to her.

"Iie…She got too far, or maybe it's just that she cloaked her presence in some way…"

"No time like the present to look for her, then."

They jumped into the wildness, Itachi and Kisame managing to spectacularly run straight into trees before Sakura had time to warn them.

_Oh boy…Looks like this will be harder than anticipated._

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Well, I had fun imagining what an entire city would be like if it housed only bats. Does it show? Anyway, the training starts now! Do tell me if there's something you'd like me to incorporate, I might take you up on your suggestion if it fits with my plans! Ja ne!

Chishin: center of the earth


	78. Failures

Hey everyone! I worked my ass off to post this chapter today (otherwise, you all would have had to wait till Sunday at the soonest). By the way, there is now a new piece of fanart for this story! I'd like to thank CandyCornQueen for drawing it. Here's the link, which I'll also put on my profile: (Obviously, get rid of the spaces) moncheri pepsi. devi ant art. c o m /art/The-Blind-and-Unseeing-303380317

And maybe I'll soon have another one to present to you…I'm crossing my fingers! ^^

Enough about me. Read on, read on! I think you ItaSaku amateurs are going to like it.

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"OH MY GOSH!Are you alright?" asked Sakura, running up to the males sprawled on the ground. She hovered above them, hands glowing, fully prepared to check them for injuries, but both Itachi and Kisame shook off her concerns and got back on their feet.

_Are they embarrassed or something?_ she thought to herself, not knowing if she should feel amused at them or sorry for them. _A little bit of both will be fine, I think_, she thought, and allowed herself a secretive smile.

"Eto…Shall we try again?" she suggested.

The two males nodded, knowing that she, at least, could 'see' them, and took off again, this time more slowly. Still, even their outstretched hands didn't do much to keep them from stumbling in the minute that followed.

Shaking her head, Sakura followed them at a more sedate pace.

"Guys…this…isn't going to work," she said, even as Kisame tripped and landed flat on his face.

"Why couldn't this have been an ocean?" cursed Kisame loudly, punching the ground angrily.

"Now, now, relax, Kisame-san," said Sakura, trying to appease him. "It's obvious that things aren't going to be easy for either of you. Should the two of you simply follow me?"

"We'd be able to follow you," replied Itachi, "but it wouldn't be productive."

"Well, do you have a better idea?" she asked, racking her brain to find one herself.

"What about those chakra strings of yours?" asked Kisame. "Think you could use them?"

"Well…Attaching them to you won't do any good, but…Maybe I can form a web of chakra strings, see if it gets us anywhere," she offered.

When they agreed, she sent chakra strings in every direction, trying to map the area the best she could. They stuck to rocks, plants and trees, and occasionally other life forms.

"Alright," said the medic. "Follow the chakra strings. Since the bats hide their presence, if you find that a string is seemingly attached to nothing, it's probably because it's stuck on one of the bats."

"Let's go, then," agreed Kisame. Both he and Itachi began to earnestly follow the strings while Sakura forged on ahead, creating more strings as she went. At least they would be able to sense her chakra. If that could help them create a mental map of their surroundings, she'd be happy.

-:-

Chiyoko chuckled silently to herself as she observed the humans' progression in the cave. They weren't doing much progress, but they weren't as bad as they could have been. That idea to use chakra strings was a good one, she admitted freely to herself, but it was only a temporary solution. It would do for now, but even then, they wouldn't find her so easily.

Smiling slightly, she settled comfortably in her tree and waited for things to happen. She had a feeling that things would get very interesting.

-:-

Itachi carefully followed a string, sensing that it would lead him to a minor success. He made sure not to disturb any of the other strings along the way. At the end of the string, he found a bat resting on a boulder and steeled himself as he approached.

"Ano ne…May I ask a question?" he asked softly, trying not to break the peace of the place.

The bat turned its head in his direction in acknowledgement and languidly turned on its side.

"What is it, human?" it asked with a decidedly male voice.

"I am looking for a female bat. Chiyoko-chan. Has she been by recently?"

"Chiyoko-chan?" mused the bat. "Nah. Been a while since I saw her. Tell her 'hi' for me if you find her. And good luck. She's a tricky one."

Frowning mildly, Itachi nodded his thanks and followed another string, hoping to have better luck this time.

-:-

Kisame grumbled to himself under his breath. This was the third bat he was stumbling upon, and he was no closer to finding Chiyoko than he had been when she'd first given them the task of finding her in that cave.

And Samehada even had the gall to laugh at him. Damn sentient sword.

"This is getting me nowhere fast," he muttered.

Following yet another string hopefully, he wondered how much time had passed since they had begun to look for the elusive bat.

_Are the others more successful than I've been so far?_

Once more, he followed his chakra string to a bat. This one wasn't pleased to be disturbed.

"State your business and leave, human," it told him grouchily.

"Do you know Chiyoko-chan? She's a small bat, is rather mischievous and is rather enthusiastic as a whole," he explained yet again.

"I do. What of it?"

"Have you encountered her recently?"

"Iie. She has been gone for a while, and I haven't seen her since before she left for your world."

The bat sounded extremely unwilling to say another word, but Kisame wasn't one for taking cues when it didn't suit him.

"Any idea where she might be?"

"If she's here, she might not be on the ground. Unlike you, _we_ bats have wings," snorted the bat in a tone that clearly indicated that the conversation was finished.

Kisame froze, even as the bat took off huffily as if to prove a point. The only thought that ran into his head was that they hadn't anticipated Chiyoko being anywhere but in the forested area. Even if the bat had said those words only to spite him, they might very well be true. And that meant everything they had done up till now could be for naught.

_Gotta warn the others._

-:-

Sakura wandered deep into the cavern, weaving her web still, when one of her strings vibrated strangely. She immediately stopped whatever she was doing as one by one, all of her strings began to vibrate in unison.

_Someone's sending chakra in my strings…_

She concentrated on the pulsing strings, recognizing the morse code almost subconsciously, and began deciphering the long and short pulses of chakra that formed individual letters.

_Chiyoko-chan might be flying above our heads? That might pose a problem_, she thought, frowning. _Besides, how much time has passed since we started this whole hide-and-seek game?_

She expanded her senses, thinking that while it may be in vain if Chiyoko was really hiding from them, not trying would be even more wasteful.

As expected, she found nothing new.

_Well, at least I tried._

Using the same means of communication as Kisame, i.e. sending chakra pulses in her strings, she answered back that she couldn't sense Chiyoko anywhere above their heads.

Just as she was thinking such, a small fluttering to her right warned her that she had a visitor.

"Is it already over?" she asked.

"Hai, it is, sensei," replied the bat. "Those two hours went by fast, ne?"

"So we failed."

"Truth be told, I hadn't really expected otherwise. But you lot were still quite innovative! I have much hopes for you," finished Chiyoko, sounding quite pleased despite the outcome of the challenge.

"Where _were_ you, anyway?" asked the medic curiously.

"Ahaha, it wouldn't be as fun if I told you, right?"

Sakura shook her head at the bat's clear amusement. She was having way too much fun with this.

"Right…" she trailed off sarcastically, but not unkindly. "Let's go find my boys."

-:-

Unsurprisingly, Itachi and Kisame weren't exactly pleased that they had failed at the simple task. She supposed it hurt their male pride, especially seeing as they were quite competent ninja.

They sulked on their way back to the main cave—according to them, that was being "silent"—but it seemed they were more angry at themselves for being so defenseless and incapable of doing such a simple thing as find someone in a cave.

"Guys…unclench your jaws, would you?" said Sakura at some point, annoyed at the both of them.

"Don't worry, ne?" added Chiyoko. "I'm gonna teach you all you need to know later. Actually, I'm pretty impressed with all of you. You were quite innovative."

"See?" said Sakura. "We did good. Now come on, stop sulking. Anyway, aren't you guys hungry? I, for one, am famished."

The males perked up somewhat at the prospect of food, which was exactly what Sakura wanted.

Fortunately, since they were running instead of walking, the trip back to the mansion went by rapidly, and dinner was even ready when they stepped foot into the mansion.

"Wow…This is really good," said Sakura as she took her first bite of the lavish meal.

"When you can't see, your other senses gain more acuity to make up for your loss of sight. Taste is only one of them. Obviously, we developed a taste for high-class cuisine. Is everything to your tastes? We're not used to eating fish or rice, but knowing you humans need those kinds of food, Machi-baa-sama ordered the chef to cook something that would be to your tastes."

"It is truly excellent," agreed Itachi.

"I'm glad. Well now, I'll leave you to rest. I'll be going home to see my younger siblings, but no worries! I'll come back tomorrow for your training."

The bat left them to their meal with a wave and disappeared from their sight rapidly.

"Well, she sure was in a hurry to go back home," noted Kisame between two bites.

"It's understandable. Who knows how long she's been gone? She must miss them a lot," replied Sakura with a nod, thinking of how much she missed her friends that she would never see again.

"Guess so. Not like I've had a place or a precious person to come back to in a while, anyway," shrugged the blue man.

"Hey, what about me?" she teased, nudging him in the ribs with her elbow.

"That's not the same. I followed you here to make sure I wouldn't lose you—again. So it's not like I have anywhere else to be."

"Well then, just stay right here by my side," she said warmly.

"You couldn't get rid of me if you wanted to," he replied with a smirk.

Chuckling, Sakura noticed that Itachi was unusually quiet, even for his standards.

"Kisame-san, would you excuse us for a moment?" she asked, getting up. Itachi looked up at her as she stood before him and motioned wordlessly for him to follow her out of their room.

"Sure. You two enjoy yourselves, now. But don't do anything I wouldn't do!" he called out at their backs.

"Will do!" promised Sakura as she pulled Itachi along behind her.

Within moments, Itachi and Sakura walked out of the mansion and sat on the edge of the outcrop, looking at the city down below in peaceful silence.

"You're not yourself, Itachi-san," murmured Sakura, putting a bandaged hand on his. "Please, tell me what's wrong? It pains me to see you in that state. Is it because we failed the test?"

Itachi heaved a desolate sigh and wordlessly put his head on her legs. Surprised, Sakura stayed still for a moment; her fingers found his long locks and gently coursed through them in a relaxing pace. Gradually, the boy's shoulders lost some of the tension inhabiting them and he sighed once again.

"I…have failed you, haven't I?" he said at length.

"Failed me? Why would you say that?" asked Sakura, genuinely surprised by his words.

"Your heart _stopped_, sensei! And you were just in front of me! The helplessness that consumed me then…I…" his words died in his throat.

She gently put her arms around him, feeling the slightest of tremors run through him.

"I would _never_ hold you responsible for that," she swore firmly. "What happened was not your fault. Neither that nor the time I was kidnapped. I don't bear you ill will for anything. _Anything_, alright?"

"I…understand, sensei, but…"

She stopped his objection with a firm kiss on his lips.

"See? That's a much better reason to keep silent, isn't it?" she asked softly, inches from him. "No more dark thoughts, Itachi-san. Happiness is much more becoming on you," she finished, softly tracing the stress lines on his face with the pad of her thumbs.

Itachi slowly sat up properly once more and the medic pecked him gently on the cheek in endearment at the lost look on his face.

"I felt something brush against me before I collapsed and Kisame-san forcefully grabbed me. Something like your hands, outstretched, to keep me from touching my younger self. So don't say you failed me, ne?" she said softly, hugging him tightly. "Don't be a stranger, Itachi-san. When you hurt…I hurt, too, here," she whispered, putting a hand on her chest, feeling sappy but surprisingly not caring about that at the moment. "Talk to me when the burden is too heavy for you to bear alone. That's what I'm here for. That's what I'll always be here for."

With a last peck on the lips, she went back in the mansion, leaving him to deal with his dark thoughts, now reassured that if he needed help in any way, shape or form, he wouldn't hesitate to come to her.

Sometimes, men needed to deal with things on their own.

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Yep, Itachi was feeling blue. And they did fail the test. Things can't always go right the first time.


	79. Support and Homely Scenes

Hey there, everyone. Sorry the chapter is a bit shorter than usual, but things are quite hectic here. And not in a good sense. Anyway, on to a happier note. There's a new piece of fanart for this story. You can find it here: koreanfangirl . devianta rt (dot) com/# / d511625

Happy reading!

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The next morning, Sakura observed carefully if covertly Itachi's general behaviour. The Uchiha heir seemed less tense than he'd been recently. She was wise enough to know that everything wasn't resolved, but things were well on their way to untangling. Hopefully, with support from her, he would soon be back to normal.

She herself was still trying to adjust to everything. It was strange to think that about a month ago, she had been in Orochimaru's possession. So many things had happened since then that she almost had whiplash. And things still weren't resolved.

She was told during breakfast that on this day, to make it even with Kisame and Itachi during training, she was forbidden from using her sensory jutsu. And then she was the one to feel…not so good.

She felt her heart stop in her chest for a moment before it started again at twice its normal pace.

"No sensory jutsu?" she asked with a feeble voice, feeling her hands shake so much she clenched them until her knuckles whitened. The twinges of pain lancing through her fists reminded her of where she was and she forced herself to unclench them, wincing at the creaks they made then.

"That's right. The goal is to have your other senses be as acute as humans' sight is," answered Chiyoko. "So you can't rely on that jutsu or it will defeat the purpose of the whole thing."

Sakura hung her head and nodded with a sharp intake of breath.

"Alright," she murmured faintly, forcing down memories of the times when she had truly been blind and absolutely unable to see anything, then repeated more firmly, "alright. I'll do it."

Itachi and Kisame both glanced at her, feeling that they would have to keep an eye out for her. And it turned out they did need to, for at the end of the day, after an extremely bad experience, Sakura found herself in the same room with them, buried deeply in her futon. Cocooned completely in the blankets without so much as her toes or head peeking out, Sakura refused to come out to eat.

Kisame and Itachi ate next to the bundle that she was trying to blend in, occasionally offering her pieces of food from their tray, but she stubbornly kept silent and refused to budge. She knew she was being irrational—after all, they, too, had spent nearly the whole day without being able to see anything in front of them, and they had been just fine—but she couldn't bring herself to get out of her safety cocoon. She hated herself for acting like a damn sissy, but she needed time to unwind and deal with the bad emotions linked to the memories she was trying to put behind her.

_In and out. In and out. Everything's fine. Everything's peachy._

"Do you want a bite, chibi-sensei?" asked Kisame for the umpteenth time.

Only a vague mumble answered him.

Shrugging, he put the rice bite in his mouth.

"Take your time," he said. "Your dinner's not goin' anywhere."

The bundle relocated slowly so that Kisame's lap was now occupied, but still no sounds were forthcoming. The blue man simply patted it gently and resumed eating his dinner.

At long last, a quiet and muffled 'Thanks' was heard from the bundle, bringing a small smile on the males' faces.

She would be fine.

-:-

Even if Sakura had had a mini breakdown, she at least recovered quickly—mostly thanks to the unwavering support from Kisame and Itachi who, she knew perfectly, had her back. She knew that she had memories to sort through before they really incapacitated her, and she resolved to do it soon.

But at present, there was something more urgent to do.

"Sensei, what are you doing?" asked Itachi, half asleep still.

He stifled a yawn and sat next to her. She smiled gently at him.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?" she asked in a low voice, trying not to wake Kisame.

"Not really," he answered, though they both knew he was lying out of kindness.

"Hn. Well, there is a letter I wanted to write," she began softly. "A very important letter for a very important person I didn't get to see since I escaped from the Snake Sannin. I asked Chiyoko-chan, and she said she could deliver it in person."

"Is that so?" murmured Itachi, wondering if he could write a letter to Sasuke. "Who are you writing to?"

"Gaara-san, the Kazekage's son. I've been told he didn't exactly react favourably to my disappearance. I think a letter from me would help."

Itachi conjured up thoughts of the redheaded boy; he had to admit that they weren't very positive. The boy was tyrannical, that much was known, but it seemed that in recent years he had calmed down somewhat. Maybe part of it was due to Sakura's influence, though it was also possible that with the years, his control over himself had gotten better.

"Are you very close to him?" he asked curiously enough that there was an inflection in his usually impassive voice.

"In a certain way, I suppose," answered Sakura, pausing in her writing. "He pretty much thinks he owns me like any other object, but at the same time, I manage to handle him relatively well, I think. He still thinks I'm a property of his, but at least he treats me more like a human."

Itachi cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Like property?"

She smiled at the concealed outrage in his voice and put a soft hand on his.

"Hm…He didn't know any better. Nobody ever spent any time with him. For someone as ostracized and feared as him, I suppose it was only natural that he would think treating me as property was the only way to make me spend time with him was to act that way."

She smiled gently, thinking of the little redhead who, at times, could look like a little lost boy.

"He's not a bad boy, really. Just mislead and misunderstood. I'd like to see him again soon, but a letter will have to suffice for now. Did you know, he apparently took my disappearance really badly? I can't leave him without any news of me. He deserves to know, if only to put his mind at rest."

Itachi nodded. It did sound like her.

"If Chiyoko-chan can deliver it, it will be good, truly," he agreed.

"You think so?" she asked, brightened.

"Un."

She squeezed his hand; he laced their fingers together.

-:-

Kisame rolled over and, upon finding the futon empty next to him, sat up slowly, scratching the back of his head.

_Where's chibi-sensei?_ he wondered sleepily.

Rubbing his eyes, he looked to the right and found Itachi carefully braiding Sakura's long hair. It was by now a usual sight, so he merely smiled at the greetings he received and answered with a "Good morning" of his own. He blinked a few times to get the sleep out of his eyes and blearily watched as Itachi pinned a braid on top of the pinkette's head with a bobby pin.

"How domestic," he drawled good-naturedly.

"Surprising, isn't it?" asked Sakura with a smile of her own.

"A little, but it suits you, actually," answered Kisame, stifling a yawn. "I kinda like it. You two look good like that. All peaceful and stuff."

"Thanks," answered Sakura.

"Is breakfast ready yet?" he asked, getting up. He stretched then bent down and reached for a new shirt.

While he put it on, Itachi finished with Sakura's hairdo and answered, "Not yet, but it should be brought in soon."

"Oh, good. Then perhaps you can help me, chibi-sensei? "

"Sure," answered Sakura amicably. "What do you need help with?"

"Well, I need grooming of my own," he said, running a hand over his face. He could feel the beginning of a beard scratching his calloused handé "Think you could give me a shave?" he asked, playing with a kunai.

"Why not?" replied the medic with a smile, knowing just how much of a trust gesture this was for a ninja. Putting a weapon in the hands of someone who would have close access to your jugular was rarely done in such a paranoid society. "C'mere, you."

_Such a homely scene_, she thought happily. She could get used to this.

-:-

Omake

Chiyoko flew her way quietly into the bedroom, bypassing easily any guard there might have been. She smiled to herself. This would be easy.

She made sure nobody was in the room and then made her way to the untouched bed. This would be a nice place, wouldn't it?

She landed on the comforter, ready to leave the letter on the soft material. Then she stopped, frowning. This didn't feel right. This room didn't feel lived in, but the bed, most of everything else, felt unused.

_Hm. The boy doesn't spend much time in here_, thought the little bat to herself.

She left the bed, figuring this might not be the best place to leave the letter, after all.

In fact, the desk seemed most promising. It had been her second choice, and it appeared it was the best one she had at present.

Silently, she fluttered over and left the letter on top of the dark wood, satisfied that it would be shown in stark contrast.

With a nod, she left the room and returned to her own dimension, convinced that the boy sitting on the rooftop, observing the moon silently, would soon find the letter and be at peace with himself.

She almost chuckled as she disappeared, only catching herself because she knew that the redhead would hear her.

When the moon waned, Gaara set foot in his bedroom and immediately saw the white scroll sitting innocuously on top of his desk. Eyes narrowing, he reached for it with a tendril of sand.

He could not feel anything dangerous about the scroll, but more innocent-looking things had turned out to be dangerous before. If this was another assassination attempt—his mind quickly ran over all the ways this scroll could hide death—it was better to hide behind his sand.

Strangely enough, as he opened the scroll with another tendril of sand, nothing jumped out at him, no poisonous gas filled his room, and no set of sharp-pointed weapons flew at him.

_How surprising_, he thought to himself cynically_, it's not an assassination attempt_. _Highly unusual._

He didn't recognize the handwriting, so he skipped right to the end of the letter to look at the personal seal. Surprisingly, there was no personal seal, but there _was_ a cartooned drawing of a smiling girl with a blindfold who made a peace sign with her left hand. Eyes widening slightly, he quickly looked back up at the beginning of the letter and read it faster than he had read any other letter in his life.

Then he read it another time. And a third time, just to be sure and imprint every word in his mind.

Then a rare smile split his face in two.

"Hm…I'll be waiting," he murmured before lying down on top of his bed. He closed his eyes, put his hands behind his head and smirked.

Yes, he would be waiting.

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Yes, yes, I hadn't forgotten about Gaara. And here he is. Y'all happy? Next time, since you guys want me to so much, apparently, I'll do my best to incorporate a bit of Hidan/Young Sakura interaction. And Machi will make an appearance. You'll get to see what she's been cooking up while Sakura and the guys trained.


	80. Keeping Tabs

Hello, everyone! Enjoy this chapter, I'm quite happy with it. And you get a two-part omake, too, you lucky ones! Tell me what you think about it, ne? ^^

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Sakura was resting in their room, lying on her back with her head pillowed by Itachi's thigh, when Chiyoko fluttered in. Sakura put down her journals—the late Kabuto's, actually—and raised her head a bit.

"Hey, Chiyoko-chan. I thought we were done for the day," she said, wondering what the bat had to announce.

"Yep. We are, but Machi-baa-sama asked me to get you. She wants to have a word with you."

"Oh…S'that so…"trailed off the medic, sitting up properly. "Kisame-san is still bathing. Can this wait for him to come back?"

"Let him bathe. You're the one obaa-sama wanted to see first and foremost."

Sakura nodded and made a pile with the stray papers she had scattered around her in a half circle during her quest for answers in the sick puppy's records.

"Alright. I'm coming. See you later, Itachi-san."

"I'll be here," answered the Uchiha, waving her off. "And I'll tell Hoshigaki-san where you've gone."

He placidly returned to his scroll on jutsu theory while Sakura followed the little bat out of the room.

She followed Chiyoko to the main hall of the mansion, and from there they took a right turn into a gigantic corridor that lead to a whole different wing of the mansion.

That wing, Sakura noticed instantly, was busier than the one they were housed in. Bats of all sizes and colours—she couldn't see them, but Chiyoko had told her so— were flying in and out hurriedly, looking more serious than any of the ones Sakura had encountered in the city.

What was beyond that great corridor? she wondered. The only thing she knew for sure was that Machi was waiting for her; it was logical to think she would be at the end of the corridor, but what else was there to be found at that place?

It was strange to find herself in a busy hall filled with desks and papers, in which many bats of all sizes were writing what looked like reports. But most of all, what was strange was that they did so in total darkness. There were no lights to be found anywhere, since the bats, blind as they were, didn't need them. Bureaucracy in total darkness. What an innovative thing to do. Or maybe for them it wasn't.

And presiding over the whole assembly, sitting behind a monstrous desk set on a dais at the end of the hall, was Machi.

If the bats looked busy, Machi looked exhausted. There was a steady line of bats coming to her to hand her thick stacks of reports, which she then had to analyze and give instructions to a group of small bats waiting to the right of her desk according to the information she was presented with.

As Chiyoko and Sakura approached, Machi looked up from the report she was reading with the tips of her fingers. With a wave of her wing, the group of bats at her right shooed the line away, leaving Machi free to get up and stretch with a creak of her back.

"Follow me," she said, and lumbered to a door leading to a gigantic office.

As soon as the door closed behind them, she sat down on an immense cushion, leaving them to take up cushions of their own.

"Art thee well, Sakura-sensei?" asked the enormous bat.

"I am, Machi-sama. Chiyoko-chan is a good trainer and the people of your city are very hospitable."

"Good, good."

"I understand you wished to see me for something?" asked Sakura politely.

"Indeed, that is so. Chiyoko-chan, if thou wouldst?"

"Hai, obaa-sama," answered Chiyoko with a bow. She flew to the desk and took a scroll from it, which she then put gently in Sakura's hands. "This is a report from one of the Hidden Countries. Amegakure, to be more precise."

Sakura perked up at that, curious about what that report could be about. News of the Akatsuki, maybe? She could barely hope that was it.

"Some of our spies have noted strange things happening over there," continued Chiyoko. "We think it may be the Akatsuki you speak of, but we need confirmation."

"I see," murmured the medic, unraveling the scroll. She read through it rapidly, noting the various passages where the people under surveillance had been described. Since bats were blind, she had expected that there wouldn't be much in terms of descriptions of physical appearances, but she was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't the case. It seemed the bats, unlike her, had a way of telling colours apart. And they were apparently really good at describing things they weren't supposed to be able to see. The descriptions in the report were both detailed and acute. "It does seem like it. You did a good job."

"Thou didst give us a good starting point," replied Machi with a nod of acknowledgement.

"Well, I kinda have a better understanding of what's probably happening right now. Hindsight bias and all that," said Sakura calmly. "Though the more time passes, the more that changes. So I'm glad things have gone well on your end, like…before I lose my edge."

"There are other reports," said Chiyoko, dropping them one by one in the pinkette's arms. "Check them out with those boys of yours, ne? unless you'd prefer to check them out instead?"

"Stop smirking," grumbled Sakura all but heatedly. "They drive me nuts most of the time, but they're adorable the rest of the time—in fact, even when they drive me up the wall—but don't you dare tell them that. Anyway, I'll take those reports to them. I think Kisame-san will have a lot to say about this."

"Hai, hai, he was part of the organization. Think he'd be willing to tell us more about it?"

Doubts crossed Sakura's mind. If there was one thing that defined Kisame, it was that if he believed in something, he stuck to it tooth and nail and would rather die than betray his ideals. And Akatsuki had once been what he believed in. Would he, for lack of a better word, tell on his old acquaintances? She had little doubt he would, concerning Orochimaru, but what about the others?

"He would, I think," she answered at length, trying to sound more convinced than she felt.

_At least, I hope so…_

"Good, then have thy swains take a look at these," said Machi.

"I will, Machi-sama," replied Sakura with a bow. "Is that all?"

"Iie…There art things to discuss concerning thy dwelling, and that be the reason thou were asked here alone."

"My village? What about it?" asked the medic, wondering if something had happened during her absence.

"It fareth well, Sakura-sensei, no need to feel troubled. The matter concerns they ward, the daimyo's daughter."

"Is she alright?" asked Sakura after a beat.

"Aye, though she doth miss you. What I wanted to ask was this: how goes thy research? It would be troublesome if she was not healed by the time the deadline comes to pass."

"I know," agreed Sakura. "I've been working on her case. When I escaped from Orochimaru's clutches, I took his assistant's research journals with me and I brought them here. I was reading them just now, actually. There's a lead in there I'd like to follow. Despite being an utter bastard, Kabuto was a genius about medicine. If I can expand on one of his theories, I think I might be able to heal Satsuki-chan."

"Ooooh, that's nice! I hope you manage to heal her, that would be great!" exclaimed Chiyoko supportively.

"Yeah…" trailed off the girl, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"Do tell me when you think you're at the point where you need to try it on her! I'll take you to her!"

Sakura smiled, picturing Chiyoko doing a Gai-like pose with a bright smile and a thumbs up.

"I will," she promised.

With a few more pleasantries being exchanged, the conversation was over and Sakura returned to ITachi and Kisame's side for the night while Machi went back to studying reports. According to Chiyoko, she hadn't stepped foot out of the "Hall of Tabs" since the three humans had come to the bats' dimension.

-:-

Omake (Part I)

The Haruno were very happy to have their only daughter come home after such a long time. After a brief stint in the hospital, the little pink-haired girl was finally allowed to go home by the medical staff.

The devoted parents came to get their daughter at the hospital, smiling at her energetic behavior. They had been told that they had been so very close to losing her—again—right here, in this village…It was a true blessing that she was alive at all, never mind not being handicapped. Apparently, it had been a close call. The scar on her back attested to that.

At first, they had been afraid of Sakura's reaction to the scar, but while she had no love for it, she didn't seem to overly hate it either. It was rather surprising, as their girl had always been rather self-conscious of her appearance.

It seemed that her time away from Konoha had changed her a lot. There were psychological scars that would have to be dealt with, that much they had been warned of by the medics, but she had also gotten a good dose of maturity. And she had apparently made a friend, a certain Atama-san. They found that name strange, but what was stranger still was that they had not seen or heard from that friend in the time they had visited their daughter at the hospital. They would have thought that person was a figment of her imagination if not for the awkward looks the medics sported every time they mentioned that name.

"Kaa-san, tou-san, we've gotta wait for Atama-san!" said Sakura as they came by to tell her she was finally discharged and could go home.

"Love…'Atama-san' will be able to find us, don't worry," said the girl's mother.

"But…he doesn't know where we live! We've gotta wait for him! The ninja said I could have him back soon!"

As if on cue, a ninja came through the open door and deposited a carefully wrapped parcel on the bed before disappearing in a swirl of smoke.

With a squeal of pure joy, Sakura pounced on the thing and gathered it close to her chest with a smile, closing her eyes.

"Atama-san!"

Imagining some kind of pet, maybe a cat or a little dog, the two adults came closer, only to take a step back in shock as the parcel moved and _talked_.

"Fuckin' hell! Will ya get me outta here already?"

Sakura took off the wrapping cloth, revealing a severed head, and held it out triumphantly.

"Okaa-san, otou-san, this is Atama-san!" she said brightly, seemingly unaware of her parents' uncertain glances at each other.

-:-

Omake (Part II)

"Sakura, dear, dinner is served!"

With barely a grunt of acknowledgement, the girl nodded and remained sitting on the front porch, looking at the street beyond as if that would make her precious 'Atama-san' come back sooner.

Her parents privately hoped that he never came back, as the severed head was both creepy and rude, and they were afraid it would be a bad influence on their daughter. Another matter was that the ninja who came by to take it for the day had informed them that they would be putting its body back together, and frankly, having an S-class nukenin in their home, even if he apparently would not be able to harm them in any way, did not sit well with them.

"What do you expect me to do with him?" had asked the mother when they were informed of this new development, "Hide him in my basement or something, so he can do his creepy religious things there?"

The Toad Sage had assured that everything would be fine, but a mother knew these things. Her baby girl would never be innocent anymore, and it was all because of that damned head!

She privately suspected that when she wasn't looking, he was teaching her crazy chakra stuff and jutsu, and she had an almost unhealthy interest in anatomical knowledge, which he seemed perfectly content to encourage, much to her displeasure—flowers were a much safer interest to cultivate.

Alas, it seemed things were not about to get better, she recognized, as a figure walked cockily down the street, and her daughter ran up to it with a cry of joy.

Though she couldn't run the man out of her home, the deadly glare she sent his way as Sakura hugged him around the waist said it all.

Beware motherly wrath.

The sarcastic 'Fuck you' gesture he replied with behind Sakura's back clearly indicated that he felt the same way about her.

_One day, just you watch, I'm gonna kill you, immortal or not._

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I hope you enjoyed this longer chapter and the Hidan/Younger Sakura moment. It was fun to write. Who knows, maybe I'll write a story about them at some point. If I have time. They're just too much fun to write about.


	81. Coming Back

Thanks for the reviews, everybody! They made me really happy! I'm always surprised at how many reviews I get when I write about Hidan and Young Sakura. Their relationship was started on a whim by me, so I'm always bewildered when I see how much people like them. Anyway. I'll probably write a little something about them at some point…when I have time…Hm…

Anyway, please enjoy this chapter! It was both hard and fun to write, and it adds some layers to the already existing relationships. _And _some characters that you haven't seen in a while make a comeback!

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The girl returned to her assigned room feeling dread pool in her stomach. How was she to approach Kisame? She had a feeling the upcoming conversation would be disastrous.

The blue man was waiting in the room, shirtless. Beads of water glistened on his skin, clear evidence that he had just come back from bathing.

"Hey, lil' one. How was the big bat?" he asked good-humouredly.

"Tired," answered the medic, sounding exhausted herself. She flopped down on the futon next to him and burrowed into his side with a sigh.

He quirked an eyebrow at that, and exclaimed amusedly, "Sakura-chan, are you _sniffing_ me?"

She nodded into his side with an "Mmhm."

"May I ask why?"

"Comfort. You just…smell like home, I guess," she replied softly.

He gently draped an arm around her small form in a comforting and protective gesture.

"Something is bothering you," said the nuke-nin with a careful glance at the Uchiha. Said Uchiha looked up from his scroll, took a good look at them and, judging Kisame could handle it without his interference, returned to his reading quietly. "Wanna tell me about it?"

The blind girl sighed heavily. "Not really. But it's one of those things that are better not left alone. It can put a dark stain on our relationship, so I suppose I had rather get on with it, ne?"

She was well aware that she was procrastinating, but she was trying to get her ideas straight and put them into the right words.

"I think that would be best," he agreed in a tone that invited confidences. Or as close to it as someone with as few close acquaintances as him could have.

"Akatsuki," she said as though it cost her. "We need information on the organization. Information that you, at present, are the only one to have. As long as it remains, there will be no peace. You know that Madara-san will only form another group with the same goal and once again bring destruction. Please, help me stop him. _Please_," she begged.

He debated internally on how he should answer her. He himself didn't care much for peace or war, since he was, after all, a nuke-nin and he would be tracked down either way. But he could understand where she came from. And he was very much aware that if he just stood by, Madara would eventually come knocking at her door and kill her without a second thought. Which he just couldn't allow. Not now, not ever.

Sakura didn't dare move in case her movement broke the fragile moment. It seemed to her that if she even breathed a bit louder, the blue man would snap out of his thoughts and close off his heart. Tiptoeing like this around him...it didn't feel right. But this issue was one so supremely important that she couldn't reasonably put it off. By leaving the Akatsuki, Kisame had to have known that eventually, he would have to confront his old comrades, if only because Madara couldn't afford to let him, who knew his identity and the truth behind the organization, live to tell the tale.

But she also knew that duty was stronger than anything else in him. And she couldn't help but feel like his love for her, which had made him forsake everything he had worked for since becoming a nuke-nin, might one day wane and fail when facing some actor of his ideals.

_Please help me_, she begged mentally, completely still. _Please don't throw away what we have._

There was a whine from next to them, and Kisame put a hand on the covered length of his sword, patting it as he would a pet.

"There, there, Samehada," he crooned, "I won't run from this confrontation. Things are concretizing, ne, lil' one?" he said with a crooked smile that she knew was supposed to reassure her, but she waited to hear his next words before relaxing. "Seems like Samehada will finally get to taste those guys' chakra."

There was a purr on contentment coming from the sword as Sakura threw her arms around Kisame with a blinding smile and, lacking words to express the warm feeling that inflated in her chest, impulsively planted a kiss on his lips.

"You're the best," she murmured fervently against his lips, thinking to herself that she had really come to love this man. The realization elicited a surprised laughter that bubbled out of her, but at Kisame's inquiring look, she only smiled secretively.

_I'll keep this to myself for a bit_, she thought. A bit like a treasure that you wanted to keep all to yourself for a bit before sharing it with others.

-:-

Satoshi looked up from his paperwork as the door to his office—Sakura's, really, but now he was the one using it until she came back—opened. In came Tohru with an armful of scrolls that he carefully deposited next to his cluttered desk—though he was an organized man, there were just too many reports and administrative paperwork to maintain a clean desk.

"Anything special?" he asked as the blond straightened up from his crouch.

"It's mostly the usual paperwork, with a couple of people asking for a medic or two," answered Tohru, "but there is a parcel here addressed specifically to Sakura-sensei. It came by ninja carrier."

He put the wrapped box on the desk and both men looked at it for a moment before Tohru asked, "Should we open it?"

Satoshi nodded, handling the parcel. "I think so. We don't know when ojou-sama will be back, and she might need to know this has come for her. Was it trapped in any way?"

"Nope. We ran the tests, and it came out clear," answered Tohru with a shake of his head.

"Well, let's open this, then."

The box contained another smaller one and a letter. Satoshi read it first, then, with raised eyebrows, reached for the second box. The lacquered top was removed easily, then both men peered at the contents for a long moment.

They stared at each other for an eternity in silence. Then the old samurai broke it with a "Well, your village sure is hardcore."

And Tohru could only answer, "Kami-sama, sensei is really not gonna like this."

-:-

Since Sakura was blind and used to not seeing, her senses had naturally sharpened on their own, starting from when she had lost her eyes. The fact that she had started to use a sensory jutsu, courtesy of Jiraiya, hadn't changed that. So she was ahead of Kisame and Itachi in that department.

As such, Chiyoko had pulled them aside for more intensive sessions while Sakura was free to work on whatever she preferred. So she had chosen to spend her time working on theories on how to 'cure' Satsuki. She was already making much headway with Kabuto's journals and had a few theories that were starting to shape up well, and adding to that her own notes and diagrams of Satsuki's brain was only fueling her that much more to go on.

Sitting in one of the smaller baths—there was one big enough for Machi, and she wondered how much time it took to fill it up—Sakura sipped on a fruit juice while she wracked her brains. It was her second drink since she had first gotten in the bath, but the warm water made her thirsty and the bats were amazing at making juice. Or at least, Machi's chefs were. They were almost addicting, neither too dense nor too sweet, and she could almost get drunk on them.

She was finishing her second large glass of juice when Chiyoko came in and dropped into the water, surfacing a moment later with a happy smile.

"Aaah!" she sighed happily, "This really hits the spot."

With a chuckle, Sakura asked her how the day had gone on her end.

"Pretty well, pretty well. You have good mates, strong and intelligent," replied the small bat, turning on her back so she could float lazily in the water. With her hands behind her head in a rather human gesture, he could float easily thanks to her small body mass and the additional space it was distributed on with her outstretched wings. "I think in a week or two, we'll be able to move on to more interesting things."

"That's good," replied Sakura. She felt the giddiness that came with learning new things wash over her before she pushed it back down. It wasn't time yet. Even if she wished things could move faster, there was an order to respect lest everything blew up in their faces. "By the way, where are they?"

"Well, Blue said he needed to blow off some steam, and Red Eyes deliberated between having a soothing bath or just flopping down on his futon and hoping the world could stop moving."

"That bad, eh?" asked the medic rethorically, sinking into the water until only her head showed atop the surface.

"They'll get over it," answered Chiyoko, not sounding in the least bothered that she was driving them hard.

"Of course," agreed Sakura readily, knowing that they would not be the ninja they were if they got discouraged by hard work.

She smiled to herself secretively, feeling a giddiness that she had never felt before meeting Kisame and Itachi.

_I feel like the maidens in love I always read about in books_, she mused with a little laugh.

With a happy sigh, she settled comfortably against the edge of the bath and let her head rest on it while Chiyoko floated aimlessly a small ways from her.

Sakura was almost dozing by the time someone entered the bathing room next. The light pitter-patter of feet told her that Itachi had just come in for a bath of his own. She emitted a sound halfway between a moan and a groan in acknowledgement, slowly coming to.

He sat in the water next to her quietly with barely a ripple, and waited for her yawn to subside.

"How was your day?" she asked sleepily. She wanted to hear it from him, even though, through Chiyoko, she already knew the basics.

"Harsh. Chiyoko-chan drives us hard," he answered calmly, though no tension trickled into his voice.

"Is it worth it, though?" she asked. A question with deeper meaning than it seemed at first glance.

He looked at her, closed his eyes, and nodded.

"Hai."

And there was no hesitation in his voice.

-:-

Toranosuke looked up from his work as a chakra signature seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

_That is—!_

He shot up, leaving his tools behind, and ran up the cliff, uncaring that the waterfall wet him along the way. At the top, as though waiting for him, a pink-haired child stood before him.

"Sensei!" he exclaimed joyfully if in clear surprise.

"Hey," she said with a small smile, waving gently at him.

"Sensei!" he exclaimed again, overwhelmed.

"You already said that," she chuckled.

"Sorry, I just…What are you doing here? Are you back for good?" he asked, noticing the heavy bag she carried.

"I'm just here for a few days," she answered, heading for the main house.

"Oh? They let you leave? Did you need something in particular?" he asked, following her and taking her heavy bag from her hands.

"Hn. I was just dropped off. I've got something really important to do here," she replied and, before he could ask what that was, turned her head in his direction with a confident smile. "I'm going to heal Satsuki-chan."

She said it so confidently, like there was no chance that she could possibly fail, that he reflexively kneeled on one knee in front of her like a vassal in front of his daimyo and answered with a firm and resounding "HAI, SENSEI!".

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And on to the next chapter…


	82. PKU

Oh happy day...I'm very happy with this chapter. To me, it seems very The Blind and the Unseeingsy. But that may just be me. It's longer than usual, too! (I was very motivated) And I spent much time on it to make it to my liking, adding details and all that. And researching medical stuff, too, to make things believable. Anyway, as promised, here's a chapter with Satsuki, and you get to know what was inside that mysterious lacquered box...

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_Aaaah, home_, thought the pink-haired medic contentedly as she stepped foot in the main house. Had it really been months since she had last been here? It felt like an eternity ago.

She was immediately seen by an approaching medic who faltered at her sight.

"Welcome to...Sakura-sensei?"

She didn't know him nor he her, but she suspected that her general appearance was unique enough that people recognized her on sight. Plus, Toranosuke accompanied her.

"I'm home," she replied with a small bow.

"Welcome home," he replied, regaining his wits about himself.

"Please don't let me disturb you," she told him, and headed for her rooms to unpack, the tall nuke-nin dutifully following her. The medic nodded and returned to his work in a nearby room.

As Toranosuke put down the encumbering bag on the floor, Sakura observed her surroundings.

"I haven't been here in a while, but it still feels like home," she sighed happily. "My room is really clean. I take it you regularly air it out?"

"Satoshi-san makes sure of it," he replied with a nod. "He says it has to be ready for your return, whenever that may be."

She started to nod, then something about what he had said hit her. A knowing grin appeared on her face.

"Oooh...'Satoshi-san', is it?" she prodded, grin widening to epic proportions as he blushed and fought not to look away in embarrassment.

"Eto..."

"I'm happy for you," she said, cutting him some slack, and patted him gently on the forearm. "Is that recent news?"

"About a month ago, actually," he replied, clearly relieved that his relationship did not make her feel awkward. It was one thing to know someone was gay, but another entirely to actually see proof of it.

"Well, congratulations. I hope it works out for the two of you."

He could tell her words were sincere, and he, too, smiled in answer.

"Thank you, sensei. Speaking of him, I know he received a package addressed to you a while ago. He didn't quite know what to make of it. Perhaps you should see it?"

Intrigued, Sakura replied that she would do just that.

On the way to her study—now used mostly by the samurai—her path crossed that of several medics, some she knew and others she didn't, but she didn't let them stall her for long. She wanted Satoshi to debrief her about the recent happenings in her village before she could move on to treat Satsuki.

As it so happened, both Satoshi and Tohru were in her study when she slid the door open. It was a heartfelt reunion for she had come to think of them both a bit as family, but she had to cut it short, as she knew that she didn't have that much time.

"I've been told that a special package came for me during my absence," she said, immediately noting the unsettlement they felt at her words.

Satoshi went to a cabinet and withdrew a box from it. Immediately, she sensed what was in it and tensed. She remained utterly still as the older man gingerly opened the box, revealing its contents, which only confirmed what she already knew.

"Tell me that didn't come from a living person," she said, her whisper echoing in the silent room.

Wordlessly, Satoshi handed her a scroll. She took it from him, read it once, then a second time to make sure she understood any hidden meaning, and threw it on the desk in a raging movement. She whirled to Tohru, face thunderous, and demanded: "Tell me you didn't have anything to do with this."

"I swear I didn't know," he said earnestly.

She believed him.

"Alright," she sighed, then repeated more firmly, "Alright. I get it. This wasn't your idea. So why the _fucking hell_—please pardon my bad language—did the Raikage send me a pair of eyes in a sealed box?"

-:-

Sakura was still seething silently by the time Satsuki came in and glomped her.

"'Kura-chan!" she exclaimed happily, hugging the smaller like she would a doll or a plushie.

"Hey, Satsuki-chan," she replied gently, noticing but not caring that the males left them alone. She was only glad that they surreptitiously swept the lacquered box away from Satsuki's line of sight. The two ocular globes looking straight at the ceiling, perfectly preserved by the seals as though they had just been harvested, were not something she needed to see.

"Are you back for good?" asked the black-haired girl hopefully.

"I'm not," said the medic contritely, "but I came back for you."

"Eh, really?"

Before the aristocrat could get excited, Sakura continued, "Yep. Remember that your father sent you to me so that I could heal you?"

The other female looked somewhat confused as she frowned, trying to remember.

"Hai, but...I don't feel sick..."

"I know. But trust me, when you're healed, you're going to look back on this and realize why I healed you," said the medic soothingly.

A smile bloomed on Satsuki's face, full of naïve trust. Sakura, who knew the risks and what 'healing' could entail, smiled a little more grimly.

"Okay!"

She couldn't afford to let her down.

-:-

Putting the pair of ocular globes out of her mind for the moment—which was very hard to do, and haunted her still—Sakura told Tohru to select a handful of medics who would work with her on Satsuki and to have them meet her in her office in an hour. Meanwhile, she helped Satoshi swipe aside the paperwork he had been working on and waited for Toranosuke to bring her the bag she had brought with her, since the journals and her notes were all in there.

Then she placed them into some pre-established order for the presentation she was about to make. There could be no ambiguity, no mistake, for Satsuki's life could well be on the line. You didn't mess with one's brain without consequences.

The medics started to trail in, each one greeting her politely, and she in turn thanked them for coming. Finally, Tohru entered and closed the door behind him.

"First, thank you all for coming," she began. "As many of you probably know, Satsuki-chan was sent here by his father, the daimyo, as a condition for the proper establishment of this medical village. He agreed to authenticate it if I managed to 'heal' his mentally-retarded daughter within five years. As you know, I spent a certain part of that time in a state of inability to research anything, but the journals I procured at the end of my imprisonment were worth it. I have assimilated their contents and done some research on my own, adding diagrams and notes to it all. And I believe I have finally found the key to success. So I now ask you to help me in this endeavour, as you are all—I trust my apprentice on this—highly competent. For the future of this village, will you lend me your expertise?"

They all agreed.

-:-

Sakura didn't have to fight much to force Satsuki into an induced coma. The girl was obviously afraid she wouldn't wake up, but the diminutive medic managed to convince her that all was good and well and that everything would go without a hitch. After that, the aristocrat let her place on her face the mask that would continue to pump the anaesthetic into her lungs and gently fell asleep.

Brushing a few strands of black hair away from her face, Sakura made sure Satsuki was stable, then called in the other medics. They had agreed that they should not come in until after the mentally-retarded girl was asleep so as not to frighten or excite her overly much.

"Alright, people," she said, feeling much like a ship captain. "This is no walk in the park. It's not like searching for an alexipharmic. We're dealing with the brain of a living human girl. Be careful with it."

That was enough for a prep-up speech. They were all professionals; they knew how to do their job.

"Shall we get to it?" she suggested, hands glowing with healing chakra.

A chorus of "Hai!" answered her, making her smile. Satsuki was in good hands.

-:-

The basic problem with healing Satsuki was that her problem was a genetic one. Meaning, even if Sakura could somehow heal her, there was always the chance that with the renewal of her brain cells, she would turn gradually back into a mentally-retarded girl.

So she had to make sure that the cells, when they regenerated, didn't have the problematic extra chromosome.

That called for a fuinjutsu master. Chiyoko was actually on her way to retrieve the seal Jiraiya had prepared beforehand, having been warned by the same bat a while before that his expertise on that matter would be needed.

Chiyoko was not back yet, obviously, but the operation would take a long time anyway, so she needn't feel pressed for time. Rectifying every PAH gene from every last one of Satsuki's brain cells would take a _long_ time, even if she was to be helped by several medics as skilled as she was. If only Satuki's father had taken her to a competent medic at birth, she could have been diagnosed with PKU, and her diet would have been modified to prevent the mental retardation. Now, however, she had been put on an appropriate diet low in Phe, which she would have to follow for the rest of her life, but it was not enough. It couldn't revert the damage. And so here they were, trying to do just that and to prevent further loss of mental capacities.

As her hands hovered above the sleeping aristocrat's head, she couldn't help but wish she was simply looking for an alexipharmic back in her cave, alone and peaceful.

_Yeah, right. A walk in the park. That would be too nice. Lead or mercury poisoning would have been too simple to cure. If only she had been taken to a doctor..._

She nodded to her companions.

_Let's do this._

-:-

Tohru was in the kitchen, preparing a tray on which he placed several little bowls. Usually, they were used to serve delicate desserts and sherbet, but for the last few days, he didn't use them as such. He instead put in each bowl a few chakra pills, each medic's ration so that they wouldn't forget them or take too many, and brought them to the room where they were, even now, working on Satsuki. They couldn't afford to stop, lest all they did unravelled in front of their eyes, but he wished they could. Chakra pills were not proper fuel for the human body. At least, since they were approaching the maximum he could reasonably accept them to use, he would soon send in a new wave of medics.

_Of course_, he thought_, that won't stop Sakura-sensei from overexerting herself, if she even accepts to come out of that room before everything is over._

As he was thinking such, something light landed on his shoulder. Expecting to see one of the hawks—Konoha, maybe—he was actually quite surprised to see a little bat.

"Hello," said the night-dweller.

"Hello," he parroted stupidly.

"I'm Chiyoko-chan. Bring this to Sakura-sensei, will you? It's the seal she asked for."

He gingerly took the scroll she handed him with a nod, putting it on the tray along with the bowls full of chakra pills.

"I'll be sure to tell sensei that," he answered.

-:-

A few days later, Sakura finally got out of the room. She had purple shadows under her eyes that, even with her blindfold, could be clearly seen. Tohru grimaced. They looked as though they had been carved by a knife, but the little medic looked at peace. A somewhat content feeling of calm and quiet victory hanged about her.

He handed her a cup of hot milk with honey, escorting her to the cave. She took a sip of it, smiled beatifically and thanked him heartily.

"I'm gonna sleep like a baby after a good bath," she murmured, content like a sleepy cat.

"I take it the operation was successful?" he asked, lighting a torch as they went down the stairs.

"Only time will tell," she replied, "but I think so. I think the hardest part was actually replicating the seal on the base of the cerebellum and on the inside of the skull—that's why there's blood on my hands, by the way—but we managed to do it. And thank you again for finding me those medics. They were a big help."

"I've known for a while that this day would come," he said, "so Akawa-san and I had time to find talented medics who thought this village was a good idea and who were willing to come here and help us make it a reality by healing Satsuki-chan."

They headed for the bathing cave, and Tohru activated the seal for hot water, conveniently turning his back to Sakura as he did so. By the time he turned around, her clothes were in a pile on the floor and she was immersed up to her neck in the hot water with a small smile of supreme satisfaction.

"What will you do about the eyes, now, sensei?" he asked, broaching a subject he knew she had avoided thinking about in since closing that lacquered box.

She took a sip of her honeyed milk and leaned her head against the rim of the basin.

"What to do, indeed..."

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I had much fun with this chapter. It was nice to bring in old characters. And thinking about medical stuff. Anyway, here's a definition for a word I don't expect many people to know:

Alexipharmic: antidote to poison


	83. Satsuki's reaction

Hey hey! I'm back! I had some technical problems with this chapter, which is why I unfortunately wasn't able to post it last Friday, even though it was finished. But now you get it, and the next one should be up either Friday or Saturday morning.

This chapter was very hard to write. I knew where I wanted it to go, but damn if it wasn't a chore to write it to make it believable! But I still had some fun with it. And made it longer than my allotted 2,000 words. Hehe.

And now you may read on.

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Sakura slept for the better part of the next day, getting up in the late afternoon and still feeling tired. However, there were things to be done, so she couldn't afford to sleep all that much.

There was a tray waiting for her on a low table in her room, allowing her to reduce her hunger—she silently thanked whoever had tiptoed in and put the tray there. Feeling more like a human already, she stood up, stretched her arms above her head, and headed for her study, knowing she would find Satoshi there.

As expected, he was slaving away at paperwork when she slid the shoji door open.

"Ojou-sama. I trust you slept well?"

"Indeed. Nothing like sleeping in your own futon. What about Satsuki-chan?"

"She is stable and still sleeping, but we expect her to wake up reasonably soon."

"The moment of truth..." murmured Sakura. As soon as the girl opened her eyes, they would know whether they had failed or not.

Satoshi nodded pensively. He prayed that the last few years Sakura had spent on research had not been for naught. He didn't want to think of the consequences if they proved useless.

Sakura shook her heads to clear the depressing thoughts away. "Anyway. I was actually coming here for that..._gift_ from the Raikage."

With a nod, the greying man retrieved the lacquered box and handed it to her. She hesitated for a moment, then steeled herself and took it from him. She ran her fingers over the lid silently, sighing audibly.

"What are you going to do about it, ojou-sama?" asked Satoshi gently.

"What _can_ I do?" she sighed heavily. "Personally, this makes me ecstatic. After so long, to _see_ again! To be able to see the sun and the moon and the clouds, to see the sky bloom into a myriad of colors at sunset, to see rainbows and stars..." Another heavy sigh. "But that won't be for a while yet."

"So you aren't going to transplant those eyes on you?"

"Right. That would be political suicide. My apprentice is from Kumogakure already. If I accept those eyes, I'll be indebted to the Raikage, even if the letter says the contrary. That's just nice words, and we both know it. And it my eyes come from there, that will put a direct link between me and that village, especially if those eyes have a doujutsu. They'd be in their right to supervise me. And that can't happen for the sake of the neutrality of this village. I can't place a village above the others, which is what would happen if I accepted those eyes."

Despite hearing the raw pain in her voice—and he understood how excruciating it must have been to make that decision—Satoshi didn't move to hug the girl, knowing that it would only make her crumble down in front of him. He respected her pride and her pain, let her internalise it and hide behind a strong façade, for she would later on cry in Kisame and Itachi's presence. For now, he merely offered her a hot cup of tea to warm her up and bring some measure of peace back to her.

-:-

Two eyes opened slowly, blinking drowsily to get the sleep out of them. Satsuki found herself looking at the ceiling. She grimaced at the pounding headache that threatened to take over with a roar.

A rustling sound to her right made her turn her head gingerly, and she found herself looking straight at Sakura. The medic, noticing she had awakened, put down the scroll she was reading and the mug of tea she was drinking from, and pitter-pattered up to her futon. She observed blankly as the child sat in a seiza next to her and put a cool hand on her forehead. A soft glow later and she felt her headache recede greatly.

"The headache is normal, Satsuki-chan. It will pass eventually. It's only the after-effects of the work we did. Rest for now. I'll have someone bring you some okayu to get your strength up."

She nodded, leaning back against her pillow. Sakura ran a hand on the bedding to smooth it down in a motherly show of affection.

"The world is going to look much different when things settle down in your head," she murmured just above a whisper.

She wondered what that meant.

-:-

Her headache had ebbed somewhat by the time she next woke up, for which she was thankful, but she still winced as she sat up, looking for the promised bowl of okayu. Her gaze landed on the sleeping form of the pink-haired medic. Apparently, she had fallen asleep at the low table, for her cheek was pressed to her scroll, head pillowed by her left arm. Next to her, just short of touching the scroll, was her cooling rice porridge and, much to her delight, a plate of gorp.

She quietly slipped out of her futon with a wide smile and tiptoed up to the table, careful not to wake up the clearly exhausted medic. She carefully took a spoonful of okayu, careful to leave her precious gorp for last, all the while pondering whether or not she felt any different.

_Not really_, she eventually concluded. There was only this pesky headache...

"Should I wake her up so she can ease it?" she murmured with a glance at the softly snoring pinkette.

_Better not_, she thought. She was tired enough as it was. It would only be respectful to let her sleep.

Her mind snapped back to a time when she had disturbed Sakura's sleep because she was bored and wanted the medic to play with her. She hadn't hesitated then.

Thinking back on it, she felt that her actions had been rather selfish and childish.

_Oh well._

She dumped her spoon in the rice gruel once more, idly thinking back to several of her interactions with the child medic.

_She never really acted like a kid... _she thought to herself, glancing at the tired face of the sleeping girl. _Though I certainly did!_

She had had so much fun with Sakura, but then she had disappeared...

_Disappeared? She was kidnapped...and she returned injured...torture? How come this is so clear now, yet I didn't understand what was happening back then? Why did I only think she was gone for longer than usual when everyone had grim faces around me? Why, if it was so clear? Why did I not see?_

Panicking, the aristocrat felt something grip her, suffocate her as more and more discrepancies popped to the forefront of her mind.

_Why? How? What happened? How come I—_

She lunged at Sakura, eyes wide and frightened, and didn't realize immediately when the blind girl came to.

-:-

Sakura was jostled awake as soon as a weight sent her falling to the floor. Her first reflex was to reach for a kunai, but she stalled her hand, realizing blearily that she did not feel any killing intent coming from her assaulter.

Mumbled gibberish came to her ears, soon increasing in pitch, frequency and urgency. The hands gripping her upper arms were shaking yet clenched so tightly they felt like claws.

_What the hell happened?_ she wondered, bewildered.

"Satsuki-chan?" she called gently, surprised, then, more forcefully: "Satsuki-chan!"

The hyperventilating girl snapped out of it, looking surprised to see where she was and what she had been doing; her memories came back to her like a wave, and with it a flood of tears rolled down her cheeks.

"What happened to me?" she cried out pitifully. "What _happened_ to me-e-e-e?" And she dissolved into tears, bawling her eyes out.

_So it's happening..._

"Satsuki-chan...Satsuki-chan, look at me," she said, putting her hands on the sides of the other female's face to tilt it up. "It's normal to feel disoriented. Due to special circumstances, you didn't develop like other people. Your mindset remained that of a child, despite your age. Your father entrusted you to me so that I could try to rectify that. And we did. But now your mind is adjusting. Let it do so, it's not harmful. And you'll feel better afterward. Okay?"

"Promise?" sniffled Satsuki, eyes wet and vulnerable.

"Yeah. I promise."

The taller girl reached for her and held her tightly to her chest like she would a teddy bear, as though she were a charm to protect her against evil spirits. Understanding, Sakura let herself be cradled tightly by the trembling girl.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," she whispered softly. "Nothing to fear here."

-:-

"I don't care about him! I'm staying here!"

Satoshi looked at the petulant aristocrat patiently.

"Satsuki-chan...Your father would probably very much like to see you. We've already sent word that you were cured. He'll be replying any day now."

"I don't care!" repeated the girl, cradling a slowly suffocating Sakura closer to her. The pinkette couldn't escape her iron grip, merely feebly hit her arms with her hands. "You just see, he'll try to marry me off like my sisters! He had given up on me as a lost cause since I was no better than a child, mentally, but now? Ooooh, now, he'll jump at the chance to make more political ties thanks to me! Suddenly I become valuable! Ha! A valuable pawn, that's what it is! And I'm not going to stand for it! If I have to be used this way, I much prefer to stay here and strengthen his ties with this village!"

"Satsuki-chan..."

"I-i-e! I'm not listening! I'm not going back to him!"

"Satsuki-chan..."

"I'm not listening, I said!"

Looking severely unimpressed, he only deadpanned, "You're strangling Sakura-ojou-sama."

"Wah!"

She let go of the medic who, no her hands and knees, panted, taking in large gulps of air.

"Are you alright, 'Kura-chan?" she asked worriedly.

"I'm...I'm fine," wheezed Sakura with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm fine, don't worry about it. More importantly, you can't stay here just like that."

"Why not?" pouted Satsuki. "I like it here! And you like me, too! Am I in the way or something?"

"It's not like that," replied the pinkette. "Obviously, once he hears that you're healed, your father isn't just going to take my word for it. He'll want proof. So it's either we go to him or he comes to us. My guess is he'll ask us to go to him, especially if he wants you back."

"More like order us to," muttered Satsuki.

"Yeah, well, be that as it may, you'd better be prepared to go see him."

"Can't I just stay here as a political hostage? Everyone does it in the nobility as a show of good faith. And I'm already here anyway!"

"We'll see," said Sakura at length, rubbing the bridge of her nose tiredly.

"Thank you, 'Kura-chan!" exclaimed Satsuki joyfully, squeezing the smaller female to her chest.

Sakura smiled softly.

"You know, I'm glad that despite everything, you're still calling me 'Kura-chan," she murmured. She wouldn't say it, but she had been afraid that they would lose the close relationship they had when Satsuki started acting her age.

Satsuki put her chin on top of the medic's head, loosening her arms a bit around Sakura's small frame.

"Of course! You'll always be my 'Kura-chan," replied the aristocrat contentedly. "This is my home, you guys are my family. I love you guys lots and lots!" she finished with an extra squeeze.

-:-

Omake

Kisame and Itachi got out of the underground city, ecstatic to finally get out of the darkness.

"Man, this is gonna be great!" exclaimed Kisame, running joyously toward the end of the cave. "I don't care if it takes me a few minutes to get accustomed to the sun, I'm going outside!"

Itachi, though less vocal about it, shared his enthusiasm. He, too, missed natural light and wide open spaces.

"I wish sensei was here with us," he said calmly, easily matching Kisame's pace.

"Yeah. But at least she, too, gets to feel the sun on her face," replied Kisame with a minute frown.

"But she doesn't get to see the sun or the clouds," said the Uchiha pensively. She said that's one of the things she finds hardest to bear. Especially when she accompanies the Nara heir's cloud-watching."

"Yeah...must be hard," murmured Kisame. Feeling something that you couldn't see...And it wasn't like her sensory jutsu allowed her to see whether there were clouds or not, since they were too far and shadows weren't alive. They didn't contain nature's energy. If it was warm enough, she couldn't tell whether it was a gray day or a warm night. "Hey, I think I might have an idea. But first, isn't she taking long to come back? Even if apparently this place's time is pretty much aligned with our normal world's one... Were there complications with the operation?"

"According to Chiyoko-chan, she stumbled onto something that will force her to stay there a bit longer. And it doesn't have to do with the operation. She wouldn't tell me what it was, but at least it doesn't appear much dangerous. If it is, I made her promise to take us to Sakura-sensei."

"Good call."

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And so we see what effect the healing had on Satsuki.


	84. Kumogakure, City of the Clouds

Hello everybody! I'm sorry for the lateness, but things are…hectic. Crazy. Killing me. Whichever synonym you want to use. Fortunately, starting next Friday I'll return to a normal beat. Anyway. I'm glad you liked the Satsuki moment. While she may now be more adult-like, she still has child-like reflexes—which she will not always tone down. So it's kinda having to balance between being an adult and being a child. Well, you'll see. As a last note, I know I've written before that Sakura had received the yes from the Tsuchikage, but it's really the Raikage, so I'll be going back to change that in the previous chapters. Just a warning, if you wonder why the chapters have changed or anything.

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As expected, a missive came for Sakura a few days later. And as expected, the daimyo didn't come himself. He sent one of his attendants to inspect Satsuki and, if she was healed, take her home.

The attendant was, first and foremost, utterly surprised at the reception he got. Sakura welcomed him politely as he stepped foot into the house, but the aristocrat she took him to see was less than happy to see him. Frigid would probably be the right word.

Oh, she was still polite. She acted every bit the part of the aristocrat, but one who clearly couldn't care less about him. Hiding behind a plastic polite smile, she invited him to sit on a cushion in front of her with a graceful wave of her hand.

"Speak your matter, and be curt about it, if you please. If you'd be blunt about it, it would save us all a lot of headaches," she told him before he had a chance to say anything.

"Ojou-sama," said the man with a bow of his head. "You appear well."

"I _am_ well," replied Satsuki, refraining from acting too sarcastically. And that was only because Sakura had made her angry, threatening face at her behind the man's back.

The daimyo's messenger glanced at Sakura who acted as though she hadn't noticed it. She was only there to defuse things if Satsuki didn't keep her cool.

"Your honourable father sent a doctor with me," he said with another glance at Sakura, "to run some tests on you."

"How impudent of him," murmured Satsuki calmly with formality. "Not only does he not trust in Sakura-sensei's word, he also does not trust in her professionalism and that of the people who assisted her."

Once more, the messenger glanced at Sakura to gauge her reaction, but she appeared utterly impassive. Whether that was a good or a bad thing he could not fathom.

"I trust you do not feel slighted by this, Sakura-sensei," he said to her. "My master had no intention of such. However, he did want to make sure that all was as you said, so he sent his best doctor here with me, one who has taken care of ojou-sama in the past and thus knows her well."

The pink-haired medic only nodded sharply.

"Let him enter, then."

The examination went well, the doctor clearly competent if rather taciturn. He spoke only when necessary, making his visit quick and to the point. When he was done, confirming to the daimyo's messenger that Satsuki was fine and normal, he retreated out of the room, presumably to wait until they were done.

Sakura found that she liked his no-nonsense attitude and professionalism, having observed him for any attempt at deviousness—you could never know, when politics were involved—and noted that he had attained his status at the daimyo's court through competence, not boot-licking.

As soon as the door closed behind the doctor, the messenger spoke once more: "Ojou-sama, your father will be glad to know you are healed. He wishes to see you most impatiently."

The aristocrat's face remained impassive.

"Is that so? How strange that you mentioned he wanted to see me only now that you have ascertained that I am cured."

"That's—!"

She continued despite his objection. "In fact, for a father who so misses his daughter, how strange that I never received news from him. It has been several years now since I have come here, and I have not received a single letter. If my siblings could find the time to write to me once in a while, how could he not? For someone who loves me that much, how could he forget my birthday?"

The messenger reddened in embarrassment, desperately searching for words.

"So tell me, who does he wish to betroth me to? How big is the age difference? When would he have me married for convenience?" she demanded, each question a verbal backhand to the daimyo's assistant.

Once more, the man couldn't say a word.

In a calmer tone, she continued, "I may have been childish before, but I was no fool. I knew my father then and I know him now. Please tell Chichiue-sama that I thank him deeply for sending me here and that I will stay here as a gesture of good will between him and Sakura-sensei."

Sakura smiled internally to herself. That was a good political move. If the daimyo refused to let Satsuki stay there, it would basically mean that he did not trust Sakura and her village, which would in turn make people wonder why he would do so now, after leaving his daughter for years there. And people were not stupid. They would come to the conclusion that it was a political move on his part and that he reneged on his word to support the village. And if Sakura refused to hand Satsuki over, he would have to use force to retrieve her, which would probably make the Hidden Villages react, since they would not let their medics battle alone against the daimyo's men.

And by leaving Satsuki there, he consolidated his link with the village and indicated that it was formed legally and with his permission.

_A win-win_ _situation_.

"It would be no trouble to have Satsuki-san here," interjected Sakura before the messenger could make up his mind either way. "She already has a room and people know her here. I will not object if she wishes to stay here."

At length, the man nodded resignedly.

"Very well. I will make my report to my master."

-:-

While she waited for the daimyo's next move—and she hoped he would let things be—Sakura pondered over what to do with the lacquered box. She had pensively run her fingers so many times over the top that it had taken on a weathered look, gradually losing its shine.

"I guess I should go see him..." she murmured to herself.

Satoshi, who had been working on some paperwork nearby, looked up at her small form on the veranda through the open shoji door.

"See whom, sensei?" he asked before his eyes landed on the accursed box.

"The Raikage. I need to give this back to him," she replied, holding up the box for him to see. "But I should stay here until the daimyo answers back.

"You should go, then. We can always send a hawk to you if we need you back here. I would accompany you, but in your absence, this place will not run itself. But what about your apprentice?" he said, thinking suddenly of the blonde. "He is from Kumogakure and should thus be able to guide you there easily. Plus, he hasn't been back there since he came here, if I'm not mistaken. He would probably like to see his family and friends."

She nodded, reaching for the takoyaki that said apprentice had put down next to her in a simple white and blue plate just minutes before, silently leaving so as not to disturb the pensive medic.

"Yeah...Maybe I'll do that..."

And then she sighed. She _really_ didn't want to go to Kumogakure. Her thoughts strayed to Itachi and Kisame. How she wished she could be with them at the moment...

-:-

She thus asked Tohru to accompany her. And the blond was ecstatic to go back home, if only for a time.

"Better get a good windbreaker, sensei," said the young man as he put on a heavy coat himself, entering the kitchen.

Sakura's head snapped up, hitting the underside of the kitchen table with a loud thud. His eyes widened.

"Sensei! Are you alright?" he asked, running up to the table while she extricated herself from under it.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she assured him. "I was just surprised."

"What were you doing under the table?" he asked, intrigued.

She held up a cooking knife for him to see.

"Dropped it. Anyway, what were you saying?"

"Just that you should bring a coat. Kumogakure is in the mountains, so the wind can get chilly up there."

"Oh. Right."

She frowned, noticing the kanji on the back of his coat.

"Wait. That…Maybe it isn't such a good idea to wear that coat."

He was confused. He looked at his coat, then back at her.

"Ano…Why?"

"The kanji. Returning to your village with _this_ village's insignia on your clothes may not be the best idea," she said uncomfortably. "It would not be very diplomatic. Especially considering I'm going there to pretty much politically slap the Raikage in the face by refusing his gift."

He considered that for a moment. On the one hand, she was probably right about the whole politics thing, but he also knew the Raikage was a fair man, if a bit intimidating.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," he replied reassuringly. "But talking about that kanji…"

When he trailed off and didn't continue, she coughed pointedly. As though startled out of his reverie, he coughed himself, avoiding looking at her. She narrowed her eyes.

"Alright, mister, spill it. What is it?" she asked sternly.

"Eto…How much do you know about Kumo's customs?"

"…I've got the bad feeling that I won't like this…"

"Well, in Kumo, we get tattoos of things that represent us. Kanji, I mean."

"You _didn't_," she said, inhaling sharply.

He wordlessly took off his shirt and coat, displaying his naked left shoulder to her. Inked in precise strokes on his flesh was the very kanji she was afraid would be there.

"And left shoulder, too, closest to the heart," she murmured unhappily. "If the Raikage murders me, I'm holding you responsible. And you'd better not be showing that to everybody back there."

-:-

She hadn't warned the Raikage that she was coming, knowing that giving him a head start would not be wise for her. Even then, he apparently knew they were coming, as the guards at the entrance of the village didn't seem surprised that she showed up unannounced.

They let her in the village without much fuss, only telling her that the Raikage wished to see her. She was told to report to the tallest mountain of the village, where his office was. The blue building he inhabited was part of said mountain and clearly visible, but a ninja still accompanied her there. Probably to make sure she actually went there.

Tohru waved her off, giving her general directions to the market, in case her meeting finished before he found lodgings for the both of them and came to get her.

Feeling her heart thumping almost painfully in her chest, Sakura followed the ninja who was waiting to escort her, a tall man dressed in the usual gray clothing of the Kumogakure ninja, along with the white vest, its unique strap looping across his left shoulder.

As she walked on the streets with her guide, she noticed people looking at her, some even whispering and pointing at her, but those were the civilians, for ninja were way more subtle in their gossiping. They, more than their civilian counterparts, knew of her, and thus recognized her on sight—not many young girls out there with cotton candy pink hair and a black blindfold who walk around as though they can see as well as anybody.

Some of them nodded at her as she passed by, and some she recognized, too.

_Well, at least they're not hostile. Though that may be changing pretty soon…_

She really hoped that Tohru had the Raikage pegged correctly as a fair if stern guy.

_I'll kick your ass if those stories you told me weren't true_, she promised mentally.

And then she was at the Raikage's office.

Several miles away, a certain blond sneezed.

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Whew! Another one done! I had so much fun writing it, despite being soooo sleep-deprived! And the next chapter should be fun, too, with the Raikage and all…


	85. Diplomacy at its Best

Sorry, everyone! I know I was supposed to update yesterday, but I had to rewrite the whole chapter. As I've said before, computers as a whole hate me. I saved the chapter on my USB key Thursday, and when I went to finish it yesterday, I couldn't even open it. And so I rewrote it.

Well, here you go.

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The man sitting behind the desk was nothing if not intimidating. Easily as tall as Kisame, tanned and blond, he was dressed like a boxer. Plus the traditional Kage hat and coat. Which really didn't make him any more approachable.

_I can do this_, Sakura thought to herself, walking up to the desk while the door closed behind her like a boon, trapping her in the room with a man who would probably soon want to wrench her head from her shoulders with his bare hands. Which he probably could do. _Confidence is key. Confidence is key_.

"Good day, Sakura-sensei. Please take a seat," he said with a gesture in the general direction of the chair sitting innocuously in front of his desk.

"Thank you, Raikage-sama," she answered politely with a bow of her head.

He nodded and asked, as soon as she was properly seated, "Judging from the blindfold you wear, am I to assume this visit is meant to return the gift I had sent to you?"

She sighed, bending down to reach into her bag and retrieve the lacquered box that had given her many headaches as of late. Putting it gingerly exactly in the middle, on top of the Raikage's desk, she replied, "I'm afraid I cannot accept it, despite how much that may pain me."

He cocked an eyebrow at her before a frown took over. Crossing his arms over his chest as if to show off his bulging muscles and intimidate her some more, he stared down at her.

"Explain."

"It is impossible for me to accept it," she said, hoping the phrasing of her refusal tamed him a little.

With a snort, he pushed the box onto her side of the desk with a single finger.

"As diplomatic as that sounded, it really didn't explain anything."

"Diplomatically speaking, then, my village has to remain neutral and not attach itself to any village more than another, and the fact is that my apprentice, Ishika-san, is from here, making enough of a link to this village already. I represent my village, and cannot be indebted to you or this village more than I already am."

She pushed the box across the desk with the tip of her fingers, revealing the back of her hands as she did so. His gaze was piercing as it looked at the scars crisscrossing the pale skin, but despite the urge to hide them in her sleeves, she refrained from doing so. She was proud of those scars. They were testament to how far she was willing to go to follow her ideals. Let him look all he wanted. It would only assure him that once she was determined to do something, she saw it through to the end.

"Then consider this a personal gift from me, not one from the Raikage," he answered, gently but firmly pushing the box back onto her side of the desk.

"Even then, it is quite impossible," she replied with determination, pushing the box back straight into his hands.

"Nothing is impossible, it is only our minds that make things that way," he said, pushing the box back into her own hands and closing her fingers around it.

"I'm not in the habit of changing my mind," she said, frowning as he refused to let her hands go and feeling mildly irritated that his paws dwarfed hers. It was childish, but she couldn't help it. She was sick of being stuck in that form.

"Me neither," he replied with a dangerous smirk. Like Kisame's, his had a sharp edge to it.

_This is not good._

"Considering Kumo's obsession with eyes and doujutsu, I'm actually quite surprised you'd be giving me eyes," she edged, remembering the tragedy that had befallen Neji's father.

The Raikage didn't seem fazed.

"Don't worry about that, sensei. Those eyes are just eyes, no doujutsu to link you to this village, and they don't even come from here."

She felt frozen, even when her blood pounded in her ears and fire coursed through her veins, spreading fury in its wake. She was pretty sure the roar in her ears wasn't natural. It wasn't, was it? She wondered for but the fraction of a second, this like everything else swept away by a wave of raw anger.

"_Who_ did they come from?" she grounded out through a jaw so tight it was a miracle she could utter a word at all.

"Just a prisoner. It's not like she'll need them anymore, and she has the same blood type as you, so I thought we might as well reuse them," he said almost offhandedly.

"Take me to her," she demanded.

"What makes you think she's even still alive?" asked the Raikage, crossing his arms on his chest once more. "It's been weeks since I've sent you those eyes, and my interrogators are skilled at what they do."

_Defensive posture_, she noted distractedly.

"You spoke of her in present tense. Now take me to her."

"And why would I do that? The woman's a nuke-nin. Let her be. Besides, what benefit would I gain from it?"

She exhaled slowly through her nose, calming down enough so that she didn't feel like getting up and clenching her fingers so hard on the edge of his desk that it shattered under her hands.

"Alright. Let's fight for it, then. If I win, I get the woman, and I'll give her back her eyes. If you do, I'll take those eyes."

"And you'll personally heal my ninja when they stop by your village."

She nodded sharply.

"Alright. Deal."

A grin stretched his face.

"Then let's do it."

-:-

Tohru was waiting for her when she came out of the Raikage's office. He looked up as the door opened and got to his feet, only to falter when he saw that the Kage was following her, not just being polite and showing her to the door.

"Sensei..." he faltered, at a loss for words, unsure if he should even ask.

"Ah, Ishika-san. You found us lodgings?"

"Ah...Aa. I ran into one of my childhood friends on the way, and he offered to host us during our stay."

"Good, good. Would you happen to have a map to your friend's home?" she asked, walking up to him.

Having thought of that, he fished a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

"But may I ask..."

"Raikage-sama and I are going to fight. I'll see you later. Be sure to give my thanks to your friend for me, ne?"

She patted his arm reassuringly as she brushed past him determinedly, her countenance clearly showing that this was a serious matter, not a simple spar just for fun.

"Ano...Good luck, sensei!" he called at her back.

_I'm going to need it_, thought the pinkette grimly.

-:-

Thinking back on what she knew of the Raikage, Sakura quickly came to the conclusion that she was screwed. He, for one, had just as much chakra as Kisame, and she remembered how _that_ particular fight turned out. She would need to be inventive if she wanted to stand a chance against his nintaijutsu, a dangerous mix of ninjutsu and taijutsu. Rationally, she knew that once he started using nintaijutsu and his capacities augmented radically, she would stand no chance. Naruto, when in his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, had been able to beat his speed, but he was nowhere near that level now, and neither was she. The Raikage was probably the fastest human alive at the moment.

_So I've got to beat an unbeatable speed. Lucky me._

Of course, she also knew that he wouldn't use nintaijutsu against her unless she proved to be a worthy opponent.

_Should I downplay my skills?_ she wondered as they each took a battle stance.

But she had a better idea. Fingers blurring together into hand signs, she used a genjutsu that would make trap him for a moment, she hoped, as it was one of her most subtle ones. Meanwhile, she quickly ran through another jutsu, hiding her presence as the bats had shown her how to do, and hid behind one of the many boulders that littered the area.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

A small bat appeared in front of her, to which she quickly whispered what she wanted. With a nod, the bat disappeared. Now she only had to wait.

She started to weave a web of chakra strings. If she could yank on any string and make a boulder jump at him, she could maybe—stress the maybe—take him by surprise. In this fight, despite her strength, she stood no chance if she played fair. So she would have to use all of her deception skills.

She felt her genjutsu dissolve, and then he was upon her.

_Okay, need more practice at hiding my presence. Seems like I need extra lessons with Chiyoko-chan_, she thought as she evaded a dropkick.

And damn, the Raikage was fast.

They engaged in a taijutsu battle, and she thanked Tsunade and Kakashi for drilling into her how to evade any blow. She mostly reacted by instinct as she ducked and dived under the Raikage's punches. It did help, however, that she was a smaller target than what he was probably used to.

However, she couldn't simply duck forever. She would eventually tire and then he'd land one good punch on her and she would be toast.

And then the Raikage swung at her once again. She didn't evade his blow by jumping back as she had done for a while; with a roar, she made to punch him and, when he twisted to avoid the blow, infused her foot with chakra. The blow she delivered shattered a few ribs, but it was not enough to seriously impair him.

Surprised that she had managed to touch him at all, the tanned man stopped for a moment to consider her.

"Aaaah…That renowned strength of yours…this fight may yet be worthwhile," he said, smirking. "Did you know, I've got something similar…"

_Great. _Now _I really need that bat to do what I asked it to._

"Raiton no Yoroi!"

_And now I'm doomed. Where _is_ that bat?_

The Raikage's entire body glowed yellow, and she knew that due to the chakra running through his nervous system, his reflexes, speed and strength were now incomparable.

And she got to experience that speed, too, as she was suddenly sprawled on her back, ears ringing.

_Did he just punch me?_ she thought blearily.

And he did so again, this time in the stomach.

She felt her breath leave her body in a great whoosh, nausea assailing her as he broke some of her own ribs.

She yanked on one of her chakra strings, and he jumped off of her, lest he be carried off by the gigantic piece of rock.

She rolled to the side, barely avoiding the boulder herself, and felt her hair swish as the boulder sailed past her.

"That was close," she whispered.

"Tricky, tricky," he said, crouching a small ways away. And damn if his grin wasn't widening.

He wasn't deterred in the least.

He jumped at her once more, and she was pounded into the ground once again.

Blood spewed from her mouth. But that didn't matter, for as soon as he made contact with her, she sent medical chakra coursing through her whole body and into his. It wasn't nearly enough to stop his heart, but it did numb his nerves and slow him down.

"What the…"

She smirked.

"Don't forget that I'm a medic-nin with a few tricks up my sleeves." She felt chakra signatures materialize next to them; her smirk widened. "And speaking of tricks…"

Oh, he would not have seen that one coming. And he didn't, if his widening eyes were anything to go by.

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Can anyone guess what's going to happen next?

And a few things to make sure you guys are up to par:

Nintaijutsu (忍体術; Literally meaning "Ninja Body Techniques") is a term used to describe the fighting style used by the Third and Fourth Raikage. A combination of ninjutsu and taijutsu, the Raikage uses nintaijutsu by first surrounding himself with his Lightning Release Armour. This augments the strength of his physical attacks, making them even deadlier. His speed and reflexes are also increased.

Raiton no Yoroi: Lightning Release Armour


	86. The Strong Live and the Weak Die

Hello, everyone! Thanks for all the reviews, I'm always so glad to get some. And I do read each and every one of them! By the way, those of you who manage to read this entire story within two or three days, you're awesome. I mean it.

As promised, here's your next chapter! I worked very hard on the battle scenes (I still think I'm no good at them) and I'm actually happy with the way this chapter turned out. Hard, that. The reason this is posted now instead of last Friday is that I had computer problems (again, I know, but what can I say? Computers hate me). Fortunately, I had made a backup of my chapter, and it was a good thing, too, or I would have had to completely rewrite it, and you wouldn't be reading this right now. Anyway, read on, and tell me what you think!

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The Raikage looked up as he felt chakra signatures appear to his left, eyes widening slightly as he saw just what had suddenly materialized and was observing him seemingly impassively.

Hacking blood, Sakura allowed herself a small, secretive smirk.

_Heh. Rather unconventional, but surprise is exactly what I'm all about._

She directed a chakra-laced kick at the tall man, fissuring his tibia—damn that technique of his that rendered her attacks almost useless—and jumped away, closer to the two males who stood protectively next to her, eyes frigid.

She heaved, putting a hand to her injured ribs, and addressed the newcomers whose killing intent was steadily rising.

"Heya, guys. Mind lending me a hand?"

-:-

Brought by Chiyoko, the two newcomers stared at the scene, noting instantly their medic's sorry sight. Two sets of eyes settled on the Raikage's form, and despite the bat's warning that this wasn't a fight to the death, two brains came to the same conclusion instantly.

_Enemy._

They didn't even glance at each other, only jumped into the fight with deadly intent, both knowing somehow exactly what the other would do. Chiyoko's training had borne fruits.

-:-

A stared blatantly at the ones who had just appeared. How had that sensei managed that? And then he noticed the bat fluttering innocently next to the taller man's head. Of course. He had received news that she had disappeared to train with her summons—highly unusual, but not unheard of. It appeared that those were bats.

_How fitting._

"This was supposed to be a one-on-one fight," he pointed out calmly.

"I used a legitimate technique, they didn't just appear suddenly," she replied, knowing very well that he was arguing solely on principle.

"Alright," he eventually agreed, "but don't expect me to pull my punches."

"Wouldn't expect you to," she said, and destroyed the ground with a well-placed stomp of her foot.

He lost sight of the newcomers in the cloud of dust and debris that ensued, realizing a moment later that their presence disappeared completely.

_How did they—?_

Bloodlust hit him full force as something ripped across his side, and he felt his chakra drain away from him through the sizeable hole. His body reacted on instinct, twisting away with a punch, but the damage was done.

He had lost a good chunk of chakra, and his ripped flank hurt like a bitch. The wound was not as important as it could have been, thanks to his jutsu, but it was not negligible. What irked him more than the wound itself was the fact that he had been hurt at all. His whole body had slowed down because of the medic, and the left side of it reacted a beat slower than the right, which increased his chances of getting hit, unless he acted accordingly.

_She affected my nervous system_, he noted._ So she isn't that weak._

The ground shattered under his feet, forcing him to jump away—and just in time to somersault away from a gigantic ball of fire that charred the ground when it exploded a moment later. In the dust cloud that followed once again and the acrid smoke from the fireball, he barely managed to avoid a swipe of the strange sword the nuke-nin was swinging around dangerously. Having been hit with it once and knowing the damage that it could do, he deftly avoided another swing and punched the man when he came close enough. He heard a satisfying crunch, but the sword came around to bite him in the thigh just as he jumped away and he felt yet more chakra drain from him.

-:-

Sakura frowned as she noticed what was happening. This was way too easy. The Raikage was not a man to be taken down so easily, no matter how good her boys were. Something was wrong.

She was preparing for the worst, preparing just in case a jutsu that may yet save her if A tried anything drastic, when Itachi decided to pull a fast one on the Raikage to end things more quickly. The whole area suddenly erupted into flames of the darkest black, ravaging the ground, billowing up and up in volutes of acrid smoke that burned her lungs and brought back memories of her original time and, more than that, of when her eyes had been ripped out of her skull.

_Concentrate, concentrate!_

She didn't even have time to curse as a fist struck her chest with enough force to send her flying several feet, ribs shattered to pieces. She hiccupped in surprise, suspended in the air for the longest second of her life, and subconsciously felt stupid for thinking that it seemed much more dramatic and even poetic when you saw it happen to others and their eyes widened, staring unseeingly at the sky as their body arched gracefully in their flight.

And then her body crashed to the ground with a dull thud that rattled her bones, and she felt her head crack as she hit the ground. Rock shrapnel pierced her back, stars exploded in front of her nonexistent eyes—_how strange_—and then suffocating blackness.

-:-

Having quickly come to the conclusion that the fight would end only when Sakura, who was staying out of his reach and being a general pain in the ass, was put down, the Raikage twisted and escaped his fiery prison from underground. As soon as he was out of the raging inferno circle, he ran at the unsuspecting medic who probably thought she was safe at that distance and flatly punched her as hard as he could in the chest.

As expected, she was propelled into the air, and for a long moment, her body was like that of a graceful dancer. Then she folded on herself in her flight and landed in a tangle of limbs with a disgusting wet and dull thud.

_Is that it?_ he wondered, almost disappointed when she didn't immediately jump back to her feet. Granted, she could not have seen him coming with the speed he used, but he had expected a bit more resistance.

Silence reigned as he ran to her side, careful and watching for any sign of this being a ruse on her part. Then he saw the blood that pooled around her head.

Just his luck. She had hit her head against one of the rocky debris she had made with her insane strength.

_Have I inadvertently killed her?_

As he crouched next to her, he noted that her chest didn't rise and fall, even erratically as it should have due to her destroyed thoracic cage.

_No breathing._

Just to make sure, he reached down to put two fingers at her jugular to confirm she had no pulse, already thinking of how he should explain her accidental death to the other Kage who would undoubtedly be very unpleased by the turn of events.

"The strong live and the weak die," he murmured.

His fingers finally touched the young female's neck, and he had just the time to think that she really had no pulse when a wave of chakra rippled through his body, coming directly from hers.

_Residual chakra? _he thought in surprise. But the chakra hadn't expanded all around her at his touch, as it should have. It had entered only his body. Alarmed and feeling two raging death intents fly at him, he jumped back, figuring he would check later to see what that wave of chakra had done to him. Only to find out exactly that as his body was suddenly frozen still.

Cold hit him across the neck; a glint of steel in his right eye, and then a menacing voice in his ear.

"Move and die, Raikage-sama."

When had the Uchiha heir sprung up on him?

He reflexively stilled, even though his body still did not respond to him in any way, unwilling to risk getting his throat slit by a kunai or getting a second one planted deep into his brain via his right eye.

And then chakra flared in the girl's chest, and she heaved in one glorious intake of air that made all three males look at her in wonder. For a few tense seconds, they all held their breath, watching. She trembled, her shaking uncontrollable as she gasped, gulping air in like a drowning man.

The blue man was at her side, gentleness in his movements that seemed at odd with his character as he knelt and gently smoothed her brow.

"Gotcha," she whispered when her shaking abated to frequent spasms and tremors in her muscles. "I'm not so weak, A-sama. And I do believe I've won, ne?" she asked with a painful smile.

She reached a trembling hand to his, aided by Kisame, and heavily let it fall on his much larger one. Chakra ran through him, unblocking his nervous system and giving him freedom of movement once again, though he refrained from moving—the Uchiha's threat was still very much active and present.

"Had you planned all this from the start?" he asked instead, impressed despite his best wishes by her deviousness.

"Actually, I quickly came to the conclusion that with your jutsu, I could not hope to approach you," she whispered with a grimace of pain as her breathing rattled her broken ribcage. She hissed in pain, and the kunai pressed closer to his neck. A moment later, she exhaled slowly and continued. "I knew that I had to make you come to me." Pause. "I figured if you hit me, I could slow down my heartbeat until it stopped, and you would surely inquire as to whether or not I was dead." A longer pause. "I planned to use all of my chakra in a delayed jutsu at that time to sever the connections between your nervous system and the rest of your body, thus freezing you in place and allowing my guys—which is why I summoned them, actually—to incapacitate you if my jutsu was not enough to freeze you. I had not counted on your punch being so strong it stopped my heart in one blow." She stopped to wheeze, thinking of that moment when he had completely taken her by surprise. She was indeed lucky to be alive. "By the way, had you not used your jutsu, I would have managed to do it in one shot instead of just delaying your reactions."

The Raikage remained silent for a while.

"That was a dangerous bet. Had your heart not mysteriously restarted, you would be dead right now."

She smirked. It was somewhat more of a tired and pained grimace, but he could tell, if only thanks to her following words, that it was indeed a smirk.

"I've had that problem before. I'm not stupid enough to risk my life in a fight with you without knowing there was a high probability I'd survive." She reached for her clothes with a dangerously trembling hand and pulled the folds aside from her neck to reveal lines on the left side of her chest. "Jiji devised a seal into which I could put some chakra and that would pour it in my heart to jolt it and restart it if it stopped like just now." Itachi's idea to ask Jiraiya to create that seal after she had collapsed in Konoha on that fateful night had been genius. She would never have won without that seal, and she knew it. She directed a grateful smile at the Uchiha, conveying her thanks and affection.

_Don't feel ashamed that I collapsed back then in front of your eyes anymore, Itachi-kun. You more than made up for it. And I never hated you for it._

Kisame gingerly took Sakura in his arms, eyes gentle as she winced at the disturbance of her wounds. She nodded to him, signalling that she was alright.

"I've used the last of my chakra to undo my jutsu," she told him.

"Alright. Where's your apprentice?"

"I've got a map in my pocket."

As the nuke-nin carefully looked through her pockets in search for the elusive piece of paper, she turned her head in direction of the Raikage, who by now had stopped being threatened by Itachi, though she noted that the Uchiha had not stored his weapons away.

"I believe I've won this fight and the bet, Raikage-sama. I'll be expecting you to keep your word."

Being a ninja was not necessarily conducive to not being a man of honour.

"I am a man of my words, sensei," he said. "I shall keep my promise."

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So, how was it? Was anyone surprised?


	87. Blind Women Mirrored

Hello, all! This time, all is good in my world, so you get this chapter on time! Oh happy day. I hope you enjoy it.

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"Think he'll let us walk around just like that?" asked Kisame as he carried Sakura away from the battleground.

"I suspect he'll have one—or two, or three—guys watching us in case we try anything," replied Sakura, not overly stressed by that prospect.

"And we won't?" he asked with a sharp grin.

She merely punched him lightly in the shoulder with a "Don't give them ideas" that made him chuckle.

"Come on, my head is killing me, and I get a headache just thinking about how that mother hen of an apprentice of mine will react when he sees me."

He nodded in understanding, and for a moment they all remained in companionable silence.

Fortunately, they all knew how to read a map—unlike a certain blond-haired jinchuuriki—and easily found the place they were to stay at. At Sakura's insistence, they knocked at the door instead of simply going through the window—"We need to show at least a _modicum_ of civility!"—and waited for Tohru to answer it.

As it turned out, the blond medic wasn't the one to come to the door.

Ending the staring contest between the man and Kisame before it began, Sakura addressed their host calmly.

"You must be Ishika-san's old teammate, ne? May we enter?" she asked politely.

Noticing he was still staring at Kisame as though if his eyes strayed for a moment, the nuke-nin would slice and dice him, she cleared her throat pointedly.

"I assure you that he will be on his best behaviour. Besides, there's a platoon of ANBU following our every move, so you don't have to feel threatened. Now, may I please see my apprentice? I kinda need his help right now."

As if on cue, she coughed, throat aflame. Kisame's arms squeezed her closer to his chest while he entered the apartment, the Kumo ninja cautiously stepping aside to let them in.

Tohru came out of the bathroom, completely forgetting to close the door as he took in the sight of Sakura's pretty pathetic state.

"Sensei!" he exclaimed, aghast. "What did you do this time? And you two! How are you even here?"

Sakura took a deep breath, wincing as she felt her bones rattle in her chest at the movement.

"I just kinda died," she explained, and continued before the now purple blond could explode, "but I'm fine now. Really."

"You're everything _but _fine!" he countered thunderously. "Put her down on the bed," he said, looking at Kisame as he led them to a bedroom.

"Ah...First, could you check Itachi-kun's eyes?" she asked, having noted that the Uchiha had bled tears of blood upon using his Mangekyo sharingan but unable to help him due to her chakra exhaustion. It frustrated her to be unable to heal him, after he had done so much for her.

_Stupid boy. Don't dim your sight unnecessarily. Not for me, Itachi-kun._

Tohru eyed her balefully.

"Unless he suddenly keels over, you're the one I'll see to first," he replied tartly.

"Please," she said simply; he somehow understood that this meant a lot more to her than she would say and, with a nod and a sigh, he turned to the Uchiha heir.

"Come here, you," he muttered. He quickly eased the pressure on Itachi's eyes but had to admit his defeat at actually healing them. That would be Sakura's job.

The lines of tension on Itachi's face lessened a bit, bringing a small smile to Sakura's face, a smile that disappeared as soon as Tohru ran a finger across her ribs to feel for breaks. She hissed lowly, forcing herself not to flinch and flee from his touch.

"You're lucky one of your fractured ribs didn't pierce your lungs," he noted dryly though not unkindly. "You would have choked and drowned on your own blood in a matter of moments."

Sensing the frown that appeared on Kisame's face, Sakura gently patted the man's hand as it lay on the bed next to her, its owner sitting close to her without hindering Tohru's work, in a gesture to convey her apologies. I won't do it again, it seemed to say, though they both knew that she wouldn't hesitate, if given half a chance. On her other side, feeling much better, Itachi sat down near her head and gently coursed a hand through her hair, his fingers a relaxing caress on her scalp.

"I know. This whole thing was based on luck. And probabilities," she added as an afterthought. Tohru still looked pretty much exasperated.

"One day, you're gonna get yourself killed, sensei," he muttered, getting to work on her ribs, much to her pleasure and relief.

"Then we'd better pray that day is far away still, ne?" she retorted lightly with a small smile, noting contentedly that Itachi was gently pushing medical chakra into her head to alleviate the pain and mend summarily her cracked skull. She leaned into his hand, feeling much like a cat being caressed and groomed by a gentle owner.

And for a time, all was quiet.

-:-

In the dark humidity, all that could be heard was a pained rasp that passed for breathing and the regular and annoying plop of a water drop falling to the ground into a growing puddle infested by bugs and larvae.

The prisoner didn't even twitch as the drops fell one after the other, resounding loudly in the otherwise silent room. It had annoyed her at first, back when she had still had some energy and tried to resist the interrogators. Back when she had not been broken into this pathetic excuse for a human being. She did not even have enough energy to crawl onto her ratty mat from where they had thrown her onto the stone ground of her cell after the last interrogation session—read that as torture.

The door creaked open ominously; a ray of light fell upon her form, soon obscured by the form of one of her tormentors.

She didn't even twitch as footsteps brought the man to her side, not even when he crouched and, lifting her head by her hair, murmured coldly in her ear, "This is your lucky day, sweetheart. Get up or I'll drag you out."

Her head banged against the floor when he released it. It hurt and she didn't care. Everything hurt nowadays.

She tried to muster enough strength to move, failed spectacularly, and remained flat on the ground, eliciting a sigh of annoyance from the male.

"Figures."

-:-

She was half dragged, half carried to another place, one that was warmer than her cell—though that wasn't a hard feat—and then suddenly—to her, at least; she tended to have attention problems nowadays—someone was speaking to her gently.

"Hello, Miura-san. My name is Sakura."

_Oh. Is that so?_ she thought uninterestedly. Knowing the name of her next tormentor didn't interest her all that much.

"I've traded your freedom to the Raikage."

Hope fluttered feebly in her chest, crashed down a moment later. _Must be another genjutsu._

"I have a gift for you..."

Darkness of another kind engulfed her whole.

-:-

She came to slowly, noting belatedly that her body, though sore, wasn't nearly as painful as before. She didn't have time to wonder about that marvel, however, as she realized something was pressed against her closed eyelids. Her hands flew to her face, roaming curiously with increasing desperation across the obstructive thing. What had they done to her now? She didn't realize that in her usual feeble and food-deprived state, she wouldn't have been able to move at all, let alone think so much.

Her chipped nails caught in the bandages as she ripped at them furiously with the drive of the desperate—a hand closed firmly on her right wrist, pulling it away from her face. She tensed, not knowing whether to fight back or let whatever was to happen come to pass in a bid for less pain.

"Don't," said a voice calmly but firmly. "You'll destroy all her efforts."

"She?" she asked in a raspy voice, not filtering her thoughts.

"Sakura-sensei. She was sent your eyes as a gift and just transplanted them back into your head. The surgery is still too recent for you to take off those bandages."

Sakura-sensei...the name was vaguely familiar. She racked her brain, trying to remember where she could have heard it before. It wouldn't come to her.

"Who?"

"Sakura-sensei. Blind, pink-haired, child medic. Creator of the medical village. That Sakura-sensei."

She slowly put her fingers to her bandages, the male having released her wrist, and murmured as if in a daze, "But...why would she?"

She could not understand how someone blind could have passed the opportunity to see again, yet alone take an interest in a pariah.

The male didn't answer at first, then she heard a rustling of clothes, probably due to a shrug on his part, and a few parting words. "Who knows? That's just the way she is."

-:-

For a long moment, the woman was alone again, and she had started to doze off once again, still very much tired, when she heard a soft pitter-patter that was much slower and careful-sounding than that of a ninja or the footsteps of an interrogator. She returned to alertness, remaining still when a little hand landed on her forearm.

"I know you are awake," said a pleasing voice, calm and to the point. "Itachi-san told me you had regained consciousness. I apologize for taking so long; I was asleep myself and getting up was a chore. My name is Sakura."

Both females remained silent for a while, neither knowing what more to say or how to react to the other's attitude.

"Thanks," she said at length, feeling rather lame. She did feel thankful, really, but it was just...she didn't quite know how to express it or how to face the child medic who had made the difficult choice of refusing the eyes that she herself would have needed. She didn't know if she could have made that choice, given the chance. Probably not. And the noble character of her interlocutor and saviour left her grasping for appropriate words.

"Where am I?" she asked after a long and uncomfortable silence, nothing else coming to mind that would sound relatively appropriate and polite. She tactfully left out any mention of the transplant, knowing it would bring much pain to the female to be reminded of what she had let go of.

"For now, you're in a highly-guarded wing of the Kumogakure Hospital. When you're strong enough, we'll make the journey back to my village. There you'll have a chance at a peaceful convalescence, because let's face it, this place is not so ideal. You're still a nuke-nin, despite my being able to buy your freedom. And then you'll decide whatever you want to do. There are several nuke-nin who have come to stay at my medical village because it is neutral grounds and they are safe there, but the result is that if they want to travel safely, they have to work for the village and wear its insignia, which I know is not for everybody. Some nuke-nin leave their village because they don't want to follow orders or have a chief anymore, after all. If you want to leave the village, no one will force you to stay."

It seemed too good to be true.

"What's the catch?" she asked suspiciously.

"There's none on my part. If you leave, you leave. Though if you do, you'll remain a nuke-nin and be hunted down by the Hidden Villages. On the other hand, if you remain at my village, you'll have freedom, but limited by the missions you'll have to do for the village—mostly accompanying a doctor or a patient and protecting them from enemies and the like. That's all there is to it, and it's your choice to make."

A soothing wave of chakra entered her body, muting much of her soreness, and she heard through cottony ears the same voice tell her to rest, before darkness claimed her once again.

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And so we meet the mysterious woman! I had fun writing from her point of view. Was it enjoyable?


	88. Despondent Sighs

My apologies for the wait. I tried to post this Thursday, to no avail, and I then went on a four-day vacation during which I had no Internet connection. I hope this still satisfies you.

This is more of a transition chapter, though some important things happen in there. Especially toward the end.

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Sakura sighed despondently, leaning back into the pillows that supported her.

"Do you think she will accept?" asked Kisame, glancing at her from where he was grooming Samehada.

"I really don't know," answered the pinkette with another heavy sigh. "Time will tell, I suppose."

There was a moment of silence, punctuated by a sigh or two, and she added, "I wish she would. She obviously needs help and time to recuperate, and I've been through the same thing as her, so I can understand...but at the same time, it hurts, you know? I feel like I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I _know_ she isn't me, but...oh, this is just stupid."

At her frustrated words, Itachi looked up and simply said, "It is perfectly understandable." His tone was so matter-of-fact that Sakura found herself smiling despite herself and carded her fingers through his hair, like she knew he liked her to.

Tohru entered the room, disrupting the rather domestic scene, and shooed the males out of the room. While they trailed out of the bedroom, he put his bag down on the floor and rummaged through it for fresh bandages.

In the corner, suspended from a lamp, Chiyoko stirred lightly, yawned once but didn't otherwise move, her slumber undisrupted.

She sat up straighter, hands going to her yukata. At her wince, he helped her undress slowly, trying his best not to jar her sensitive ribcage, and let her lean back against her pillows while he primly cut her bandages on the left side of her torso. They fell on the sheets like a pair of pincers, and she once more sat up, this time with a more pronounced wince as the hardened bandages didn't hold her torso in place.

The blond slathered a good layer of transparent unguent on her ribs to lessen the swelling and provide some minimal local anaesthesia on the whole are before unravelling a fresh roll of bandages and winding them snugly around her. He covered them with another mixture that would harden them and helped the diminutive medic put her yukata back on.

His eyes fell on a dark spot on her shoulder.

"Sensei...where did you get that bruise?" he asked, not remembering that particular one. She hadn't gotten that bruise during her fight with the Raikage, that much he was sure of. It was more recent than that, possibly even fresh enough to have appeared the day before.

"Oh, right," she said. "I haven't had time to heal myself. My bad. It's just one of those hematomas that appear from time to time. Nothing too serious."

Reassured that it wasn't some subdural hematoma appearing late due to internal bleeding, Tohru covered her shoulder with her yukata and got up with his bag.

"Miura-san should be well enough to leave in a few days," he said calmly. "And you are allowed to leave this room if you don't overexert yourself. And, knowing you and your damnable tendencies, I'll leave Uchiha-san and Hoshigaki-san be the ones to decide if you're overdoing it."

He left with a satisfied smirk at the look of horror etched onto her face.

-:-

"Well, this is embarrassing."

Kisame smirked to himself, receiving a mild slap on top of his head for his trouble. He continued to walk around the market while Sakura drummed her fingers on his head and her feet on his chest.

"I feel like a kid," she continued, noting from her perch on his shoulders the looks she was receiving.

"At least you've got a great view from there," replied the blue man. "Not too much wind up there?"

She growled at his teasing tone and promised herself that she would get him back for that.

Itachi, who led the way, didn't outwardly react though he did find her predicament amusing. Feeling many eyes on him—Kumogakure was renowned for having somewhat of an obsession with doujutsu—he didn't stray too far from them. No use in tempting the devil.

He stopped at a stall to buy some fruits—even for Kisame who looked at the proffered peach with distaste but took it reluctantly at a pointed harrumph from the girl seated on his shoulders—and was stopped by a voice coming from somewhere to his left.

"You three. Stay there for a moment."

Three heads turned in direction of the rather loud but calm voice.

"Killer Bee," murmured Sakura, unsure whether she should feel dread or not at his fortuitous appearance. She could only hope that he wasn't too pissed off that she had won against his adopted brother in a fight. She hadn't broadcasted his defeat, but she doubted it sat well with him.

The man walked up to them. As he stopped in front of the trio, Sakura said tartly, "Don't tell me I've pissed off yet another Kage..."

The jinchuuriki looked at her calmly and shook his head, asking, "And who was the first?"

"Oh, the Kazekage. Fortunately, I'm back in his good graces. Or at least, I'm not on his blacklist anymore. Anyway, was there something you wanted to tell me?"

"The Raikage is aware that he was taken by surprise and I'd advise you not to bet on anything else with him, as this time, you would undoubtedly lose."

"I know," she replied simply, and the man nodded.

"Your deviousness impressed him. He's been spending a lot of time training since then. He doesn't like to be taken by surprise."

"Do I have to watch my back?" she asked lightly though shrewdly analysed him for any sign of potential danger.

"No need for that. Though if you incite someone to fight, we can't be held responsible for any disastrous outcome," he said with a pointed look at Kisame. That a nuke-nin could walk at all in a Hidden Village without being attacked was a feat in and of itself.

"We'll take that into account," answered Itachi with his usual calm, though he doubted Kisame would try anything. The man was not suicidal.

The jinchuuriki looked at them silently for a moment, then a small smile appeared on his face.

"I wish I could have been there to see him get completely immobilized. Must have been quite a sight."

And then they were left alone in the crowd.

-:-

Sakura was let into the hospital room by two ANBU while Itachi and Kisame sat on chairs in the corridor, eating peaches calmly and discussing theories on water-based jutsu.

The woman was sleeping soundly despite the handcuffs that had been fastened to her wrists and pinned them down to her sides. Sakura observed her for a moment then sat down in the visitors' chair, pulling it closer to the bed.

She thought about the woman, unsure of how to act in her presence. Dealing with the traumatized woman seemed simple _prima facie_ but proved to be very hard to do afterward. She could not expect the nuke-nin to believe her without due cause to, but it put a strain on her. And that, especially as she saw herself in the woman.

She put a hand on the woman's head, wincing as her ribs flared in pain due to her leaning forward, and gently probed the newly-transplanted eyes with her chakra.

The reaction was instantaneous.

The woman cried out, trying to shrink away from the intrusive touch, only to be stopped at once by her handcuffs. After a few weak unsuccessful tugs, she quieted, tensing as though waiting for a blow to come.

Sakura sighed, but the woman's clenched jaw didn't relax in the least.

"It's me," she said. "Sakura."

Some of the tension drained from the woman's body, but not nearly enough.

"I'm just checking on the state of your eyes," continued the medic, knowing it was better to explain things simply before the other female extrapolated horrible things. "I'm not here to hurt you."

That last comment seemed to go right over her head as the handcuffed female remained tense and distrusting.

As unobtrusively as possible, Sakura quickly assessed that the eyes were healing fine and retreated to her chair.

"We'll be leaving in two days. The bandages won't come off before then, but we'll help you walk or, if need be, carry you. Get some rest, Miura-san, you need it."

Feeling more than awkward and inadequate, the pink-haired girl left the room, hoping that with her disappearance, the other female would be able to relax.

-:-

The door closed with a quiet click, and Itachi and Kisame looked up to see Sakura leaning heavily against it, looking pretty much miserable.

There was a beat a silence, then Kisame remarked, "Well, that was quick."

She sighed heavily.

"It did not go well," said Itachi matter-of-factly.

"It really didn't," she replied mournfully. "She has post-traumatic stress disorder, and on top of that, it's more than clear that she has no idea how to face me. I feel miserable."

"She needs time to heal," said the Uchiha. "Give her time and space."

Sakura sighed despondently.

"It's just...I feel responsible, you know? Without me, the Raikage would never have had the idea to send me her eyes..."

"But she'd still be imprisoned," noted Kisame. "But he's right. Maybe you should give her some room to breathe. And if she doesn't know how to act in front of you, then let one of your people take her in charge. You can see her when she's ready."

Nodding in understanding, Sakura directed at them a small, soft and sad smile that showed how affected she was by the whole ordeal.

"You're right, guys. Thanks."

-:-

He was, for lack of a better word, bored. Things seemed unsavoury nowadays, world dominion and eternity notwithstanding. He didn't have fun, and not even his hunger for power and knowledge managed to fuel him properly anymore.

He picked at his nails, idle at best, and smacked his lips several times in the otherwise silent room, the sound echoing for a short moment only and managing to entertain him for even less time.

_Well, this is dull._

A knock sounded at the door, and his heart beat faster in interest as he called out to whoever it was to enter.

A man scurried in, and he forced himself to look only vaguely interested to maintain his cool persona.

"What is it?" he asked, managing to stand just so that the torches' light reflected on his eyes made them glow eerily. Looking at the man tremble like a mouse was very much worth it.

"I have news, my lord," squeaked the man, avoiding his gaze. Oh, how fun. He could toy with that one. But first, the news.

"I had gathered as much. Speak."

"The medic, Sakura...she has suddenly reappeared. She went to Kumogakure and is currently going back to her village."

"Any information on why she went there?" he asked, feigning only the barest of interest in the matter.

"Apparently, she wished to see the Raikage, my lord. As of now, she is going back to her village, and there's a woman accompanying her."

That was strange.

"A woman?"

"Hai, a nuke-nin, I believe. She, too, is blind," said the man, concluding his report.

_How interesting..._he thought with a shiver-inducing smirk. There was much potential in this information. So much he could do with it. And so much he _would_ do with it.

Oh yes, this was turning into a good day. A very good day indeed.

His smirk enlarged.

"What kind of gift should I send her," he mused aloud in a jaunty tune, turning around to look at the paraphernalia of things that cluttered the room. _An idea, any idea..._

With a victorious—but still intimidating—cry, he swirled around, only to catch his spy in the beginnings of an escape attempt.

"Oh, I have just the thing..." he murmured, as he stopped the man short, revelling in his unintentional anguished cry.

_But first, a little fun._

For a long time then, cries erupted from that room, even through the solid oak door, and echoed in the bowels of the underground compound.

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Yep, something sinister is about to rear its ugly head. Wonder if you can guess who the man was? ^^


	89. Urges

Hello, all! This chapter is dedicated to Brian Stentzel, one of favourite reviewers. I hope you like this chapter! Sorry I wasn't able to post this yesterday. What can I say, my plans changed and I chose to be sociable instead of finishing this. But at least you get it today! And I really hope everyone likes it.

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"Is it so wrong of me to feel a bit abandoned?" asked Sakura as Itachi disappeared over a hilltop while they continued on to the medical village.

Kisame glanced at her.

"Nah. But since he's back here, he might as well go back to Konoha and see his family, as well as give the Hokage a report on how things are going."

"I know," she replied plainly, "but I still wish he was here with me. Gah! I sound like an emotionally-dependant woman!"

He calmly stopped her from pulling on her hair—which Itachi had put in one of his special hairdos before he left—and squeezed her shoulder in silent support.

"And on top of that, I'm horny!" she cried out unhappily.

He eyed her dubitatively, unsure of what he, a male, should answer to that.

"That's...normal, isn't it?" he said, glancing at Tohru to see the blond was further ahead with the sleeping female and obligingly ignoring them both to give them some privacy.

"It is and it isn't. I've just started to have my menses again, which means that now my arousal spikes once a month and I feel like jumping on anything that moves and is male!"

_So that's how it works for females._

She was still ranting, so he tuned in once again.

"When I came here, my body was in a shape that prevented me from having my menses, but since then, I've begun to heal myself, slowly returning to normal, and I'm now healthy enough to have them once again, with all the hormonal unbalance that brings about. But looking like this, I can't very well do anything about it. Can you imagine me coming on to Itachi-kun? Kami-sama, that'd be embarrassing."

"Is there anything shameful about a female seducing a male she loves?" he philosophically said mostly to himself. "I, for one, wouldn't mind."

That wasn't surprising.

-:-

Back at the medical village, Sakura immersed herself in her work, spending much time in her cave to forget that the woman she had given her eyes back to had not once looked at her since leaving Kumogakure.

As per Tohru's suggestion, she had let some of the other medics take care of her, never going near her room—it helped that she was housed in a different building. But it still smarted in a way she had not entirely expected.

And despite telling herself that she was being stupid and berating herself for feeling this way, she couldn't help it.

Kisame, who was snoring lightly on the pile of furs in the corner, rolled on his back.

She smiled, admiring the way his skin stretched taut across his muscles.

_Nice specimen of man._

"Your master is being lazy today, huh, Samehada," she murmured, receiving a low thrum from the sentient sword at her words.

She couldn't blame him. It was a gray day—how nice of the sky to mirror her mood—and she herself was affected by the time that appeared to slow down in the cave. Above the ground was another case entirely, for a hospital never lacked crises. Fortunately, she was not needed at the moment and could therefore allow herself to wallow in self-pitying thoughts under the pretence of brewing a new batch of antidotes.

But she still wasn't satisfied. Feeling so rejected...

_I need strong arms around me, someone to embrace me. Someone like..._

She didn't hesitate for a moment, hands flying into signs that would bring pain but give her back her true form, if only momentarily. Her teeth bit down harshly enough on her lower lip to draw out a few beads of blood as her limbs lengthened forcefully, but never did a sound escape from her throat.

For a while, she remained still, waiting for the last tremors to abate. The she quietly stepped over to the sleeping man and slowly crawled on his lap.

"Kisame-kun," she whispered gently into his left ear, pressing her lips to his cheek next to it a moment later, "wake up..."

Somehow, seeing him come to slowly, languidly—which was quite a rare thing for ninja—was completely endearing. A fond smile grew on her face, prompting him to ask with a yawn, once he had blinked sleep away from his eyes, "What's that smile for?"

Said smile grew as he loosely looped his arms around her waist.

"Hm...just a bit of happiness?" she said lightly.

"Fine with me," he replied with another yawn and a blink of still-sleepy eyes. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She lost some of her countenance at his words despite having expected them and turned her head away as though hoping to avoid his gaze.

"The other day, you said...you said if I came on to you, you'd..."

He pulled her flush against him with a light tug, avoiding locking her in to maintain some measure of control in her, and tugged on one of her long pink locks to force her to bring her face closer to his.

"I know what I said," he murmured, "and I'll abide by it."

She trembled lightly in his arms as he ran a large hand across her back, but didn't resist as he flipped her over on the mess of furs and loomed above her. Testing the waters, he put a hand on one of her cloth-covered breasts and squeezed gently the small and firm mound of feminine flesh while his other hand strayed to her waist in a smooth caress.

She moaned, low in her throat, small hands resting on his shoulder blades in a loose embrace. His left hand tightened on her waist as her fingernails dragged across his back. Tensing, he rested his head at the crook of her neck, taking a deep breath to calm down.

"Did you feel that?" she asked, and for a moment he wondered whether she was serious or teasing him.

Nipping her neck just enough to draw a few beads of blood to the surface, he replied, lifting her hips to his so that she could feel him, "Is that answer enough?"

Her tremble then, was it due to his hardening member or was it because he was laving at the very sensitive skin with his hot tongue to catch the few remaining metallic droplets? No matter, either one sufficed to boost his male ego.

His blood burned hotly in his veins, lust overtaking his senses in a single wave that wiped off everything else.

Putting his left arm around her waist to support her, he stepped further between her legs, parting them and forcing her to close them around his own waist, he leaned back slightly on his elbows to observe his handiwork. And what he saw pleased him.

There was a decidedly becoming blush on her cheeks, and her lips were parted in pleasure, lips tugging upward in the beginnings of a smile. She was at ease with him, trusted him with her body and with her heart.

Her hair made a pink halo around her head, fanned out on the dark furs appealingly, but he didn't bury his nose in it like he wanted to.

He cupped a breast through the collar of her too-small yukata that was giving him a nice view of most of her upper chest, revelling in the feel of her soft skin against his calloused palm. He ran the pad of his thumb against a hardening nipple, his ministrations receiving a shudder, and smiled as her breath caught in her throat.

Wanting to see more of her, he pushed the yukata off of her shoulder with the back of his hand, soon repeating his action with his left hand, and then only her obi maintained her yukata somewhat on her. He stared at the pale expanse of skin offered to his hungry gaze for a long moment, observing every scar, ever blemish, and finding her beautiful nonetheless.

He pressed his lips to a particularly tempting spot above her left breast, where swirls of black met together in a seal that would keep her alive and with him, in this world, so that he would never lose her.

You're mine, he mouthed against her warm skin. Her fingers coursed through his hair, bringing his head closer to her, and for a long moment, he rested his head on her chest.

"Alright, back to it," she said after a moment, and with a laugh, he did just that.

His hand strayed lower and lower, finally grazing that most special spot of hers. With a feminine moan, she bit softly on the outer shell of his ear, and he found himself hardening inside his pants.

"Quickly," she whispered with another soft bite.

"Ano...Am I disturbing anything?"

The soft inquiry had all the effect of a thunderstorm. With a "Gah!" Kisame flattened himself over Sakura to hide her from the virgin eyes of her apprentice, reflexively throwing at him a kunai that he had just whipped out from his weapons pouch—always keep it on, ninja boy.

Fortunately, Tohru was not only a medic but a ninja, too, and he hadn't neglected his training. He got out of the way, only blinking when the kunai sank into the wall of the cave behind him like it was warm butter.

"Maybe I should come back later," he muttered uncertainly while Kisame swore like a sailor and Sakura pulled a small hand from under him to grab a fur to cover them both. Fortunately for Tohru—Kisame could easily have gouged his eyes out for looking at Sakura's naked form—he only saw a mass of pink strands before Kisame took the fur from her grasp and put it around his shoulders, conveniently hiding her from her apprentice's sight.

"What the hell. Do you want." grounded out Kisame, muscles cording in his arms as he strained not to give in to his instincts and use Samehada to rip the blond into pretty crimson ribbons.

"I'm...It's just...Miura-san has decided to leave," he said lamely.

"What? But she's not ready yet!" exclaimed Sakura loudly.

"I _know_ that! But she still wants to! What should we do?"

"Just...go on back up, I'll be there in a moment," she replied, cursing mentally as the mood was well and truly destroyed.

The blond disappeared hurriedly, only all too glad to leave, and Sakura leaned back against the furs tiredly. Above her, Kisame rested his forehead on the furs next to her head and groaned.

"Well, that sucks."

"Tell me about it."

There was a beat of silence.

"Well, maybe it's better this way," finally muttered Kisame, reluctantly getting up. "I don't think I could have exactly been gentle."

"I was not asking you to," she replied with a minute frown.

"I know. But you deserve it. So next time, don't be afraid and ask Itachi-san."

"Are you refusing to sleep with me?" she asked vulnerably.

"Never," he replied, hugging her to his chest. "But not right now. Though," he whispered in her ear, "I know other ways to bring you much, much pleasure..."

"Well, then, I guess I'll be seeing you when I fix this situation..." she whispered back with a parting nip.

-:-

"Will you not reconsider?" asked Tohru while the nuke-nin stiffly put her clothes on—the new ones the village had provided for her. He looked up as the door slid open and breathed a sigh of relief. Sakura was here.

Back to her normal size and feeling quite a bit miffed that she had been deprived of her quality time, Sakura walked up to them, noting with sadness that the other female tensed at her approach.

"We won't stop you if you want to leave," she said simply, "but it is not advisable in your state. Is it because of me?"

The nuke-nin shook her head.

"I just...I can't stay here. I'm sorry. I'll pay you back. One day. I promise."

Sakura nodded. There were some things one could not force.

As the other female left the room and the village, she only thought, _I hope things go well for her and she doesn't get herself killed._

Three days later, she received news that Miura-san had been killed brutally.

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More to come next chapter! And you'll learn who the mysterious man was!


	90. I Miss You

Sorry for the lateness, I chose to sleep instead of finishing this yesterday. I'm so tired and sick nowadays I have nausea and headaches almost constantly. Yay me. sometimes I wish I could just switch bodies.

Anyway, read on!

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Despite liking her apprentice very much, Sakura had not fully forgiven him for interrupting her and Kisame and thus brooded, occasionally snubbing him childishly. Knowing that time would eventually smoothen things out, he had wisely stayed out of her way as she worked harder than ever.

She wrapped a fresh roll of bandages around a man's forearm, telling him his burns would be healed in a few days' time, when Tohru barged in, looking a complete mess. It was so unlike him that she forgot all about being angry at him.

"Sensei!" he gasped, eyes wide, hair dishevelled and clothes askew. "Something important has come up! You're needed in your office!"

More than a little intrigued, Sakura frowned, nodding her agreement. "Alright, give me a few minutes while I finish up here."

As the blond answered that he would pass on the message and left, Sakura muttered to herself that she wondered what that was all about.

-:-

Her office was very crowded by the time she entered it, a scant few minutes later. Tohru and Satoshi were there, as well as three ninja she didn't remember ever seeing before. All of them had serious looks on their faces.

_What has happened now?_ she wondered with dread.

"What is it that you wished to see me for?" she asked the room in general.

One of the unknown ninja stepped forward at a nod from one of his comrades.

"We were on our way here to get a medic for Asami-san—that's the last member of our team, and he's being healed as we speak—when we came upon a gory sight no more than half a day's walk from here. There was a dead body in a clearing, and it was the smell of blood that attracted us there at first. There was so much on the ground, and splattered on the trees...A woman, a nuke-nin judging by her hitai-ate, was pinned to the ground with senbon, and her body was completely lacerated, but we quickly came to realize that the lacerations had just been torture, and that she had not been killed that way."

"Then how?" asked Sakura, her feeling of dread worsening.

"Snake bites. So many of them, and from different types of snakes, judging by the varying sizes. But most of all, two kunai had been planted in each eye to the hilt. She was looking up at the sky with the handles protruding...Kashiwagi-san here was sick at the sight," he said, pointing to his greener comrade.

Blood pounded in her ears, and she was hearing him as though he was far, far away and her ears were filled with cotton.

"There was a message written with her blood on her forehead," he was continuing. "It said, 'To my favourite blind medic.'"

She bit the inside of her cheek, unable to feel the pain as her mind danced along the thoughts that she had inadvertently caused the woman's death by saving her and identifying with her, and that if she had tried harder to keep her in the village, she may well be alive yet.

"That sadistic son of a bitch..." she hissed, clenching her hands. Rage filled her with its venom, spreading to the far recesses of her heart and mind, and she wanted to kill him, maim him, hunt him down like a dog and put an end to his miserable life.

_I'll make him pay_, she swore. _I'll make him pay and when all is said and done, I'll happily dance on his grave._

"Orochimaru, you bastard!"

-:-

"Ooooh, the damn bastard..."

She was fuming and she knew it. However, as long as it did not impair her judgment and alter her decisions-making process, she would happily fuel the flames of her anger. It kept her from falling into despair.

"Who's a bastard?" asked Kisame, looking up from his work—sharpening a batch of kunai.

He only had enough time to catch the girl as she hurled herself into his arms, shaking as the dam broke suddenly and anger twisted into sorrow.

Arms full of a shaking medic, Kisame froze for a moment, unused to dealing with such situations. What was he to do? Remembering having seen mothers cradle upset children to their chest, he closed his arms around her and offered silent support as she sobbed soundlessly.

When the shaking abated, a long moment later, he joked, "So, who am I supposed to kill?"

The flat word she emitted brought him back down to earth with a crash.

"Orochimaru."

Though she could not see it, his eyes became hard and cold at the name, mind churning with thoughts of death and murder.

"I'll gladly assist you."

She sighed heavily and whispered, "I wish Itachi-kun was here."

-:-

Itachi gave the Hokage his report, including the episode in Kumogakure. Sarutobi was curious about the exchange that took place, and even allowed himself a small smile when Itachi recounted the way Sakura had incapacitated the Raikage.

Itachi had to recount it twice, actually, and he suspected the second time was only for his personal enjoyment.

Leaving the Hokage giggling lightly to himself, the Uchiha heir headed to his family's compound. It had been a long time since he had seen his family, and despite knowing he would be under the Elders' scrutiny, he found himself looking forward to coming home. He wondered how much his brother would have changed during his absence.

_Is his training going well? How much taller is he?_

Trivial thoughts ran through his mind as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, occasionally nodding to a ninja he knew. It was as he neared the Uchiha compound that he was tackled to the side surprisingly.

The happy laugh that greeted him as he bit the dust brought out a huffy laugh from him, too.

"Hey there, lil' cousin!" greeted Shisui enthusiastically from over him.

"Hello," he greeted back calmly, lips tugging into a small smile.

"Ya here for long this time, or is that sensei of yours waiting for you back at her village?" asked the older Uchiha, showing no sign of getting up from him.

"She _is_ waiting for me, actually," answered Itachi, gently but firmly shoving Shisui off of him. "She can, however, wait for a bit, as things are not urgent at the moment. And Hokage-sama gave me two days off to rest before I set off."

"Aha! We must use that time to its fullest!"

And so his plans for a calm day at home with his brother were shot down the drain.

-:-

By the time Itachi finally got home, it was dark outside and almost no civilians could be found on the streets.

He had left Shisui in the care of a friend of his for the remainder of the night, happy to be much less disheveled and, more importantly, much more awake than his cousin.

Fortunately, he had managed to keep Shisui from doing too stupid things and embarrassing himself, but it had been a close call.

_A very close call indeed_, he thought to himself with a small smirk. At least Shisui had all his clothes on, if not in the right order.

He slid the door open, stepping into the darkness of the house, and relished the silence of the place. He tiptoed into the hallway, shedding his shoes as he went.

No one greeted him, though he murmured a quiet "I'm home" as he entered. He hadn't expected otherwise.

Creeping up to a certain door, he entered the room and walked up to the bed upon which a figure lay in tired sleep.

With a soft smile, he sat down at the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle its occupant. He reached for the sleeping form and affectionately ruffled the dark hair.

"Uhn…Mwa…"

The figure slowly came to, blinking sleep away from its eyes.

"Gn…What…Aniki?" As though realizing who was in his bedroom, Sasuke sat up suddenly. "Aniki! You're back!"

Itachi shushed him, unwilling to awaken the whole household.

"Hai, otouto. I have a few days before I have to go back."

"Really?" asked Sasuke, refraining from yawning. He didn't want to go back to sleep yet.

"Hai. I'll be there when you get up in the morning."

"Promise?"

"I promise, otouto."

"Alright," said the younger brother, this time not bothering to hide his yawn. He hugged Itachi; the older Uchiha closed his arms around him until the little boy slumped against him. Smiling softly, Itachi lay Sasuke back in his bed and covered him with the sheets, patting them gently once he was done. He stayed for a moment more, etching each of Sasuke's traits into his memory.

-:-

Mikoto was quite happy to see her oldest son at breakfast. And since it had been a long time since she had last seen him, she took the opportunity to tease him a bit.

"So, how are things going with Sakura-sensei?" she asked, putting a side dish on the table. He was happy that neither Sasuke nor his father was there at the moment. That wasn't the kind of conversation he wanted to have in front of them.

"It is going well, actually," he replied calmly.

"Is that so?" she said lightly with a small smile. "I'm glad, then." She approached him and ran the tip of her fingers on the stress lines on his face. "These seem to have lessened, my son." Her smile became distinctly motherly, eyes softening as she gazed at him with affection. "That's good."

She patted his head and put a bowl of miso soup in front of him. With a kiss on the crown of his head, she left to wake Sasuke up.

-:-

His two-day vacation was over soon. He had barely had enough time to see his teammates and get some new weapons—his mother was more than enthusiastic about getting him some new kunai and senbon. He supposed that civilian mothers would rather get their children toys than weapons—then he thought about his first toys: rubber kunai and senbon. Hm…

He put his new weapons into his weapons pouch and gazed at his room. When would he next come back here?

A soft huff made him turn his head to the side. Sprawled on his bed, Sasuke pouted at the ceiling.

"Why'd you have to go already? You just came back, aniki!" he whined unhappily.

"Some things are very important. And going back to the medical village is important to me, both as a ninja and as a person. Do you understand?"

Sasuke nodded unhappily.

"I do. It's 'cause you love Sakura-nee-chan, right? Okaa-san explained it to me. but I don't like it. I never see you anymore!"

Itachi closed his weapons pouch.

"Sometimes a ninja has to sacrifice a lot, otouto. If you want to be a good ninja, you have to accept this."

"I know!" whined Sasuke. "But I _still_ don't like it!"

"But you're going to be a good ninja too. And you'll be away from your family and friends more and more."

"I'm going to be as good as you, aniki!" swore the younger brother. "And then I'll be able to come see you and Sakura-nee-chan!"

"I'm looking forward to it," said Itachi with a little smile. "Now, do you want a real mission?"

"Eh? A mission for me?" asked the boy curiously. "What is it?"

"Sensei wrote a few letters to her friends here. She wanted you to deliver them for her. will you do it?"

"Sure!" agreed Sasuke readily with a smile. A smile that disappeared as he saw the name written on one of the envelopes. Not that blond annoyance again!

"Aniki…Do I really have to?" he asked, making puppy eyes at his brother.

"You don't always like the missions you get, otouto, and once you've accepted one, you must carry on till the end. Go on."

His brother really needed more friends his age, but he wondered if he and the blond prankster Sakura was fond of would ever get along.

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I've got a few surprises for you come next chapter… Enjoy the calm before the storm!


	91. Disappearances and Deaths

I'm sorry for the wait, everyone. At least it's still the week end, right?

Thanks for all the reviews! I love hearing from you, so thanks! I swear, I wouldn't have gotten this far without your support. Enjoy this chapter!

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Hoping that Konoha would still be standing when he came back—he was pretty sure that Sasuke and Naruto would take their rivalry to new levels, and destructive ones at that—Itachi left his village, heading back to the medical village with a doctor in tow. Said doctor was most annoying, and he had to use all his training to remain impassive. Outwardly, at least.

"I don't get why I have to go to this damn place! What's so good about this village that I have to go there, anyway? I say, my superior has completely lost his mind! We don't need some...some _child_ to tell us how to heal our patients!" he spat, incensed. He glanced at his quiet companion and took his silence as approval of his monologue. "This is completely crazy. I bet you this girl is only a little good at what she does and she's being used as a mascot for this village. Besides, I don't want to go to that damn village. I didn't become a medic to heal just anybody. Why should I heal my enemies in the first place, huh? That makes no sense!"

_Of course it wouldn't make sense to you_, thought the Uchiha in silent impassivity. _You are no man of ideals, a person who can't look beyond what is immediately profitable to you._

As the man droned on and on, his accusations become more and more frivolous, the ninja let his mind wander, somehow managing to remain alert at the same time. Would she smile at him luminously when she saw him? Would she hug him warmly with a heartfelt "Welcome home"? Would she run her fingers through his hair as he recounted his trip to her?

He thought of his backpack, in which he had carefully placed a special scroll, one of those he usually sealed weapons or food into. This time, he had put a few gifts into it...

_Will she like them?_ he wondered. He had no previous experience in getting presents for a girl he liked—his mother didn't count. His mother had been intrigued when he had said he needed her opinion, but she had happily played along, and he was now reasonably convinced that Sakura would appreciate what he brought her. Still, he fretted nervously. He couldn't help it. This concerned the girl he loved, after all, not a simple friend or teammate.

And still the man droned on.

-:-

She sharpened her kunai like a driven girl, and once she was done and it was razor sharp, she carefully put it on top of a pile of deadly-sharp weapons. At the soft click that elicited, Kisame looked up at her, continuing with his push ups.

"You do know that these were already _really_ sharp before you sharpened them _again_ today?" At her lack of response, he continued. "This is the third time in as many days. Just a remainder," he said, putting a hand up in surrender as her killing intent washed over him.

"Just saying, and you know I'm right."

She growled at him.

"Don't give me that. You have enough weapons for a small army. And if the dead woman was really a message from Orochimaru, he'll be waiting for you to make a mistake, not attack you this soon. He's the type of person who likes to toy with his prey. He's going to play mind games with you, and _then_ he's going to attack you. So relax, will you?"

He tried to alleviate her stress by quirking a smile at her. It didn't work.

"How about you sit on me while I finish with my push ups and then we'll have a nice spar and you can destroy boulders with your fists?"

She let out a loud sigh.

"Alright, that's a deal."

-:-

Itachi stoked the fire, relieved that the doctor had _finally_ gone to sleep. This was particularly excruciating. He had gone on more pleasant escorting missions with stuck-up princesses.

The doctor groaned in his sleep and scrunched up his nose. The bug that had landed on it flew away for a moment, then landed back on his nose. This time, he reflexively slapped his nose. The shock of the slap pulled him from sleep suddenly, and as he sat up in surprise, Itachi inwardly groaned. And here he was thinking he finally had peace.

"What the hell..." murmured the doctor through a pasty mouth. He frowned, rubbing at his eyes to get the sleep out of them.

He looked at the Uchiha and snarked accusingly, "What was _that_?! Just because you have to keep watch doesn't mean I have to stay awake too!"

With a flat tone of the coldest arctic temperature, Itachi let his sharingan flare to life in his eyes. The light of the flames reflected eerily in his eyes, enhancing the unnatural mix of spinning red and black.

"Bugs are attracted to one another."

He looked at him with half-closed eyes, enjoying the way the man's frame shivered.

"Go back to sleep."

His sharingan died—he had to give the man some respite. Didn't want the doctor to be unable to sleep and slow him down more than he already was. To relax, he began to calculate how much faster he could get to the medical village if he didn't have a civilian to accompany there.

-:-

"I wonder when Itachi-kun is finally going to get here..." mused Sakura. "Hey, does this look orange to you?"

Kisame took a good look at the vial she was twirling right under his nose and nodded.

"Yeah, it does. A bit on the red side, too."

"Good, good. It's supposed to be that way. Then it's ready."

She gingerly poured the contents of the vial into a saucer and got up from the table.

"What's this supposed to be, anyway?" asked Kisame curiously, poking the saucer only to be told not to touch that.

"That, my dear," said Sakura as she dropped an armful of weapons on the table—carefully enough that the liquid didn't spill—"is a _very_ potent poison."

"Potent how?" asked the blue man, wisely returning his hands to his lap.

"Think of potent like you touch it with your finger and then you don't have a finger anymore."

He grimaced at the thought, imagining the poison eating away at his flesh painfully.

"Ouch," was all he said.

"Damn right. If Orochimaru wants to step up the game, I'll be meeting him head on," she said firmly, carefully dipping a senbon into the orange substance. "And poisons are right down my alley. I may not be able to play mind games with him, but his body is going to remember me, and that's a promise."

Kisame smiled and lay down his head on his crossed arms. A rhyme came to him, one that all ninja learned when they began their training.

"Medic-nin play with poisons..." he sang softly to himself.

A hand threaded through his hair. His smile widened slightly.

-:-

_Something is strange..._

That was a lonesome thought, but a thought that wouldn't leave his mind either. He didn't know why. The doctor was being his usual annoying self, he was alert as always, and they had not encountered anyone in a while. So where could this feeling come from?

For the nth time, he checked his surroundings. No chakra signature that felt out of place, none that had suddenly appeared or disappeared since he had last checked moments ago...He even used the bats' technique, trying to sense his surroundings more deeply. Still nothing.

_Must be my imagination._

Itachi, Itachi, one should always listen to his instincts...

-:-

"I wonder if I'm just being paranoid, but don't you think Itachi-kun should have arrived by now?" asked Sakura.

Tohru nodded pensively.

"Yeah...I, too, was thinking just the same. It's strange, isn't it? We received news that he had left Konoha a while ago, and even knowing that there was a civilian with him, it's taking him a lot longer than necessary. I wonder if something happened on the way."

"Something...like an attack?"

"Maybe...He _is_ alone. And he is the Uchiha heir, which makes him valuable. On top of that, he has a powerful doujutsu. And..."

She completed mentally what he didn't dare say.

_And he's my boyfriend, which makes him a powerful ace up a certain snake's sleeves if he manages to catch him..._

Weasels and snakes were natural enemies. When they encountered each other, a fight would always erupt. And no one could tell beforehand which one would win...

_Be the winner, Itachi-kun. If a snake tries to bite you, bite it first and live._

-:-

Someone was shaking her shoulder annoyingly. Why did she have to get up in the middle of the night?!

"Someone better be dying..."she muttered grouchily.

"I think...that might be the case..."

Such words always had the effect of making the recipient sit up straight, mind alert and as clear as if it was the middle of the day.

"What happened?" she demanded, barely noticing that Kisame had woken up at the movement and was listening just as intently to the put-together grizzling samurai.

"There was...another killing nearby. A doctor, by the looks of it. Apparently, he came from Konoha."

She nodded gravely, processing the information.

"There were traces of a clear struggle. Charred ground, burnt trees, kunai strewn all over the place...What is most telling, however, is the fact that the doctor was positioned in such a way that it was clear he had been hiding during the fight. So there was somebody else with him."

"Alright..." she trailed off, waiting for the rest of the tale.

"That man...he had a look of utter horror on his face, and there were various snake bites on him. We think he was attacked by Orochimaru too."

Something like warning bells rang in her mind. She didn't like where this was going.

"Tell me...Do we know who accompanied this doctor?"

"Hai. He was formally identified as Kiku-san, a doctor sent from Konoha to learn new techniques here for a month, to be accompanied by one Uchiha Itachi."

Her world came crashing down around her.

-:-

Omake

"Wow, that is really pathetic."

"Shut up, teme, I'm trying to be stealthy here."

"Yeah, and I can see that failing from twenty miles. For someone who wants to become Hokage, you make one lousy ninja. I pity the ones who get stuck on a team with you, if you ever graduate from the Academy."

"I'd like to see you try to find it any sooner than me!" retorted the blond, cheeks reddening in anger. "And I'll be an awesome ninja, just you see!"

"Find an orange toad? Can't be that hard. Orange isn't a very stealthy colour," drawled the black-haired child with a pointed look at the other's neon orange attire.

"Orange _so_ is an amazing colour! Don't you dare look down on it, you bastard! And that toad is a master at escaping. I bet even your aniki couldn't find it!"

"Don't you underestimate my aniki!"

A short-lived brawl later, midnight black met sky blue.

"I don't like you."

"Yeah, yeah, you've already made that clear. Now leave me alone."

"If I could, I'd be more than happy to, but I have a letter for you. From Sakura-nee-chan."

"What? You should have said so sooner! Hand it over."

Tension grew up another notch. Sparks flew between the two headstrong boys. A new showdown was in the making.

"You sure are getting cocky for a runt asking for a favour."

"A favour? Don't make me laugh, teme! This letter belongs to me, you're just a messenger! And I'm no runt!"

"I'm no teme, you ungrateful _runt_!"

"Oooh, that's it, you asked for it!"

In a certain park of Konoha, two boys went into a full-on brawl for one innocent letter that said, "I'll come to see you soon. Until then, you two get along with each other, ne?"

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Phew! That's done with. You'll see what happened with Itachi next time. Were you happy to see some Sasuke and Naruto interaction?


	92. What Makes a Good Leader

Hello, everyone! Somehow, I managed to finish this (I say finish, but I wrote 1,5K words straight to post this today). I hope you like it. I'm glad for the reviews you guys sent me, and I'd like to thank corpsedollie who reviewed every chapter I've written these past days as she caught up with me. Even more, she (I'm assuming it's a she, don't hurt me otherwise) made some fanart! Yay!

Here's the link, which I'll also put on my profile (get rid of the spaces, yadda yadda yadda): gothic rose leroux dot devian tart(dot com)/art/The-Blind-and-The-Unseeing-324414315

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Sakura lay on her back for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that people around her began to fear that she was becoming catatonic in her grief. But such was not the case. Oh no. Sakura was thinking. She was taking apart every sliver of information she had on Orochimaru and analyzing it from every angle before setting it aside and working on another, and slowly, she was organizing them into a comprehensible whole.

_What else do I know about him?_ she would ask herself regularly, and rack her brains for more, more, always more information. Occasionally, Inner reminded her of something or another, and she would add the new fact to her mental montage.

However, she soon had to accept a certain fact. However much she could remember about the snake Sannin, if she couldn't find him, it would all be for naught.

"Alright," she said, sitting up and startling Satsuki who had been glancing at her covertly for the last hour and a half. "I need Kisame-kun's help."

The aristocrat's eyebrows rose up to meet her hairline.

"Hoshigaki-san? I think he's in the river," replied Satsuki pensively.

"Again? In that weather? Sometimes, I swear that man is more shark than man," said the pinkette with a shake of her head. The day was a cold one, and she knew that the water of the river was never all that warm to begin with. She doubted anyone other than Kisame would have had the thought to get drenched in the river.

She shook her head again. If she had reacted to the disheartening news by reassembling her memories of Orochimaru and planning how to counteract every trick he had, Kisame had reacted by going into a frenzy. She suspected that if she had not forced him to take breaks once in a while, her medic self rebelling at the thought of him deliberately not listening to his body's complaints, he would train day and night.

Did the taking of Itachi irritate him that much or was it because it affected her? She knew he liked and respected the Uchiha, but what really motivated him? Was it just because he wished to get a chance to fight a strong opponent?

She shook her head once more. This was not the time for that. For now, she needed some vital information from him.

She thanked Satsuki with a small smile and headed straight for the river. Along the way, a few medics greeted her, and she answered distractedly, so focused on her goal was she. In fact, it was the sight of Kisame's shirt and sandals on the shore of the river that took her out of her musings.

_Just like a fish._

"Hello…" she called out to the flowing mass of water. "I'm looking for a man. A tall man, blue and strong, who makes me feel safe."

As though answering her call, the water parted and the torso of the blue man appeared at the surface. Like a water spirit born of the river, he approached her leisurely, never leaving the liquid expanse of blue.

"Heya. Would I be man enough for your tastes?"

With a small smile, she sat on her haunches on the shore and addressed him affectionately.

"You know you are," she replied, putting her arms on her knees and leaning her head on them. "But I'm afraid I come to see the ninja rather than the man this time."

Sensing the seriousness of the situation and having some insight as to what she had come to see him for, Kisame nodded and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Ask away, chibi-sensei."

With a nod of her own, and checking to see that they were alone in the vicinity, she told him why she had sought him out.

"Kisame-kun. What do you feel for the Akatsuki?"

Taken aback by the question, he thought for a moment.

"As an organization or as people, individually?"

"Oh, well, both."

"Alright," he said slowly, walking up to her in the water. Samehada thrummed in disappointment on his shoulder, but he shushed it briefly. "As an organization...I was part of it, and not because I was forced to, as you well know."

"I know," she replied even though she didn't need to.

"Right," he said, getting out of the water. "Well, I agree with the organization on one point: this world needs to be changed. However, I have also come to realize that the method Madara-san wants to use is not adequate," he smiled, ruffling her hair with a big hand as he thought back to their first meeting. Sitting on a boulder, he continued. "Anyway, it's mostly so that he can become stronger and control the world, which did not really matter to me until I had someone precious to me."

He didn't have to expand further on that, both of them knowing who that alluded to.

"So, well, that's it. If _his_ method doesn't work, I can at least observe whether yours does or not."

She smiled grimly, and he patted her head once more.

"As for the people in it...Obviously, I hate Orochimaru. Always have loathed him, really. What a creepy bastard...So I'd be glad to put his head on a spike," he said with a dark smile. "Madara-san...He actually shares a lot of traits with you." Seeing that she was about to object, he quickly cut her off. "It's true. You're both headstrong, and you would do anything to achieve your goals—though maybe you have a little more morality than him. As for the rest of your personality...You have a strong will and are intelligent. You know how to get your way. And you are both very powerful."

She shook her head and sighed depressingly.

"If I was really as intelligent as you think, I would have kept Itachi-kun from going, and I would have been able to protect myself when I was kidnapped if I was really strong."

"But you escaped, when no one expected you to still be alive. And you can't always foresee what is going to happen, or keep those events from happening. Besides, your strength is deeper than that." He gazed at the other shore contemplatively for a long moment while she waited for him to expand on that thought. She was beginning to think that he would keep it to himself when his low voice rumbled once more.

"What makes a good leader, Sakura-chan?"

Taken aback, she murmured, "Let's see..."

"Either one has to be strong on their own or be able to attract strong people to them. And usually, the best leaders are a bit of both. Without being strong, you won't attract strong people to you, but without other capable people around you, you won't be nearly as good a leader." He let her meditate on his words for a moment, then said firmly, "You are a good leader, for you are both strong and have capable people around you to support you. Akawa-san, Itachi-san, me, your apprentice, the Heads of several families in Konoha, even the Kage of the villages that depend on you and so many more people! Without them, you would not be as good a leader, but because they support you, help you, advise you and compensate for your weaknesses , or even just be there when you aren't and act upon according to your wishes instinctively, you can be Sakura-sensei, the leader of the medical village. You _are_ a good leader, a strong person. But Madara-san is the same as you. Where you have your village, he has the Akatsuki. And he is undoubtedly better as a ninja than either one of us."

Her small, sad smile became wistful as she considered his words and found them to be true. She toyed with a blade of grass, twirling it idly between her fingers, and asked the questions she desperately wanted him to answer affirmatively.

"If I asked you to lead me to one of the Akatsuki's bases, would you accept? And if we encountered one or more of your old comrades, would you be able to fight against them without restraint?"

Steeling his jaw, he nodded at length.

"I would."

"Thank you," was all she could she breath out in relief.

-:-

"You are not ready."

"I know."

"But you're still going."

"Hai, I am."

"Well, I'm going with you. Without me, you'd be even less prepared. I knew you should have stayed in Chisin."

"Chiyoko-chan..."

"And I'm going with you."

At the clear words, Sakura twirled around in surprise. Satsuki, who had been helping her pack, looked at her, eyes challenging.

"Satsuki-chan..." she started, only to be cut off by the aristocrat.

"I like Itachi-san. He never treated me with contempt or pity, like so many others did. I want to help, too."

"I understand," said the medic, "and I both appreciate and respect that, but you are no ninja. You would get killed, and I don't want that."

"_You_ would get killed, and I don't want that either," retorted the aristocrat. "I know that if I see you off like this, you'll go out there and fight, and probably die because that snake plays dirty! Besides, you aren't going to fight right now. I promise to stay out of harm's way, so let me come to Konoha with you. I'm sure I could be useful. I am, after all, a daimyo's daughter. My words have some strength, even in another daimyo's country. Let me help you."

She knew the other girl, knew what she looked like when she wasn't going to back down. She knew how she sounded, how she acted, knew what to expect if she flat out refused her. And it didn't take her long to come to the conclusion that Satsuki was very much serious at the moment.

_Well, if she's going to follow me anyway..._

"Alright. BUT you'll stay back when we have to fight. And you won't argue when I tell you it's time for us to leave you behind."

"Deal! I promise you won't regret this!"

_I sure hope I don't. I don't want to see you broken._

-:-

Cold seeped into him, permeating his body. Was such coldness even possible? Was it just a figment of his imagination or was his body simply betraying him in its state of weakness?

He didn't know.

From afar, he heard footsteps—or thought he heard them, he couldn't be sure it wasn't his heart pounding in his ears. Was someone finally coming to visit him? How long had he been lying there, anyway, and how long had he been unconscious? He dearly wanted those questions answered, but it was unlikely that he would get an answer even if he did ask.

The footsteps came closer, and he heard the creak of his cell door opening—so he had been right, someone really was coming to see him. That wasn't a positive thing.

"Well, well. Awake at last. I was beginning to think you wouldn't wake up."

_That voice!_

"I hope you're comfortable. You're going to be here a while."

"What is your purpose, Orochimaru?" he asked, frowning. If he could only see...

"Purpose? Ah, my purpose. Of course. Sadly, I didn't take you only for my...personal enjoyment. Although it wasn't only that you were finally alone or that you were there at the right time for the picking."

It was clear by the Sannin's offhand remarks and casual tone that he was in no hurry nor any stress. The bastard was clearly enjoying toying with Itachi's mind.

"I do appreciate you being here. I had this cell specially prepared for you for _such_ a long time."

_Creepy._

"But now you're here. And I can finally get the little medic back, too. You see, even if I don't do anything, she's going to come running to me. And all because of _you_, my dear little prodigy."

Heart freezing in his chest, he thought that somehow, he would have preferred to be tortured rather than knowing he was going to be the bait to make Sakura fall into Orochimaru's hands. His throat clenched, air became sparse, but he didn't care that his head was swimming.

_But this is far more effective torture..._

At least he couldn't see the Sannin's outstretched smile due to his blood-crusted eyes that wouldn't open.

It wasn't much of a comforting thought.

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And so Itachi is still alive, and there is more to come between him and Orochimaru. Snakes like to play with their food before they eat it...


	93. First, Deal With the Hokage

Hello, dear readers and reviewers! As always, thanks for the reviews, I'm glad to hear from you! I hope you enjoy this. I wrote all of this today, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it. I know, I know, I should have started before, but I spent my week researching ahead for a plot point. By the way, would any of you be able to accept Kisame dying? I'm not saying it'll happen, but that could orient me. I'll post a poll on my profile soon, so vote there!

Finally, as per propular request, you get to see Hidan and Young Sakura again!

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He strained against his bonds. Desperation gave him strength, unnatural strength, but it was not enough to break his bonds, not enough to free him from this prison, _not enough to warn her that she was going to die._

It was simply not _enough_!

He gritted his teeth, and a muscle jumped in his neck.

_This is not happening!_

He was more afraid for her than he was for himself. He had long since accepted that he would one day die on one of his missions. Every ninja died when facing a stronger one, or retired before then, and that was not an option for him. Not now, and probably not ever, if his clan had anything to say about it.

But it was different for Sakura. She could not die. And not only because he loved her, though his heart bled when thinking of her. An ideal couldn't die. _She _couldn't die.

_Be smart, Sakura-chan. Don't come for me._

Unfortunately, he knew her well enough to know that wasn't going to happen.

-:-

Going to Konoha was possibly the longest trip Sakura had ever taken. Or maybe that was just her. Because time was what she _didn't_ have. If Orochimaru had Itachi, time was of the essence in getting him back. There was no telling what the experimenting bastard would do.

In truth, the gates of Konoha did not greet her party soon enough.

"At last," she whispered.

The guards greeted her warmly, but at her grim face, they sobered up quickly.

"Sorry, gentlemen. I'm not here on vacation," she said tersely before they could ask why Itachi was not with her.

She was taut with stress and almost vibrating with energy. How could she stay still when Itachi was detained, probably tortured, possibly used as an experiment?

She strode through Konoha, making a bee-line for the Hokage Tower. Now that her goal was in front of her, a new kind of emergency gripped her.

_How can I explain this to Fugaku-san and Mikoto-san? s_he wondered with dread. Now that she was in Konoha, the Sandaime certainly knew she was coming to see him—she had, after all, sent one of her hawks to warn him beforehand—and she had no doubt that he would have the two Uchiha summoned to his office.

She was ushered in by the Hokage's secretary who avoided looking at Kisame—at any other time, it would have amused her, but it didn't even make her lips twitch.

"Sakura-sensei. I was expecting you."

"Hokage-sama," she greeted the old man, stepping further into the room. "Thank you for seeing me." She then turned to the silent duo and greeted them with a tense nod.

"Sakura-sensei…The news…our son…is it true?" asked Mikoto, doing her best to appear aloof but, to Sakura, failing miserably.

"I'm…so sorry…" replied Sakura, voice breaking as a wave of tears threatened to overtake her.

"I knew…always…that such a thing would happen. As a ninja's parent, you learn to accept that one day, your child may not come back from a mission…but Itachi-kun…he was so strong…for a moment, I deluded myself into thinking that wouldn't happen to him. Not to him…never to him…"

Fugaku stepped closer to his wife in silent support. She grabbed his sleeve, clutched it so tightly her knuckles turned white. He looked at his wife and nodded. Somehow, Sakura felt like a voyeur for witnessing such an obvious intimate moment of support between them.

"Does…Sasuke-kun know?" she asked uncertainly.

"We haven't told him. Not until we know for sure."

She nodded to the Clan Head. She, too, would not give up until she had found Itachi. And he had better be alive then…

"This is why I have come this day. Hokage-sama, as much as I'd like to, I can't confront Orochimaru alone. Kisame-kun is able to lead me to the place where I was detained, but it's certain that Orochimaru will not have stayed there. Nor any of the other places Kisame-kun knows. But it's a start. And a start's all I need if I get your help."

The Sandaime steepled his fingers under his chin and observed her silently for a while in contemplation.

"What exactly are you asking of me?"

"Trackers. If you can spare a few good ones…"

"A manhunt, then. And for a Sannin."

She couldn't read anything from his tone, and for the briefest moment, she hated him for it.

"For Itachi-kun. Please."

"Sensei…We have tried to find him for _years_."

She gritted her teeth. This was grating on her nerves badly.

"I have a feeling he's near Sunagakure," she said as though it cost her.

"A feeling…"

"Shall I ask the Kazekage for help, then?" she asked challengingly.

"Wouldn't it be better to ask him if you are so sure Orochimaru is in his jurisdiction? We don't exactly have the best relations with Suna. Sending my shinobi there, even for a rescue mission, would be perceived as a threat by the Kazekage. Politically, I can't do it. I…can't."

She clenched her fists, stumbled back one step. Only Kisame's strong chest prevented her from going any further. She slumped against him, feeling crippling pain erupt in her chest.

_If only it was physical, I could heal it. If only it was physical…_

She wished she could just become numb to the world, and for a while, she was, to the point that she missed the first words Satsuki said.

"…old to understand. If you were younger, you'd care less about politics and more about individuals. This whole situation seems to leave you totally unaffected. But Itachi-kun is not only a ninja. He's more than a tool, he's a human, and a human in a relationship with 'Kura-chan. And they're _happy together_, you old fool! Are you too cock-blocked to understand that?!"

By the end of the angry aristocrat's speech, Sakura was openly gaping. Where had the sweet Satsuki disappeared off to?

Sarutobi, on the other hand, didn't quite react the same way. Apparently, a Kage wasn't used to be verbally attacked in his own office.

Cold killing intent swept across the room, and she felt the ANBU hiding in the room stir, ready to act if something happened. She half expected Satsuki to collapse under it, as any civilian would, but she surprisingly held strong, a look of determination plastered on her face.

"Oh, please. If you think that's gonna stop me from saying the truth, you are sorely mistaken. I've seen _way_ worse at my father's court. Political dealings, people stabbing one another in the back for a smidgen of interest from my father or anyone in his close circle… People have tried to kill me from way back when, so this little intimidation trick? It's not working."

_Shut up, Satsuki-chan, you're going to get yourself killed!_

She grabbed the taller female, hissing, "Enough, Satsuki-chan. It doesn't matter anymore. I'll just…find another way."

"Wait. I have one thing to say," said the old man, lifting a hand to gain back everyone's attention. Especially considering the two Uchiha seemed ready to embark on the manhunt themselves.

Sakura turned her face in his direction to show him he had her whole attention once again.

"I will not let my ninja go near Sunagakure, but I can send a few of them across the country with you in search of my old student. _But_ if you do find him, don't engage him outright if you can help it and wait for reinforcements."

She let out a relieved sigh she didn't know she was holding.

_To all the gods out there…thank you _so_ much._

-:-

She slumped against Kisame, ready to follow that slump till she fell to the ground, legs jellified as tension left her body. Only his arm around her middle stopped her from landing on the ground with her legs under her as all energy deserted her.

"We did it…" she whispered.

"See? I told you I would be useful!" beamed Satsuki, hugging the pink-haired medic to her chest. Kisame wisely kept his arm to himself, lest it be squeezed to death.

"That you were…"

"So, what now?" asked Kisame, shrugging off the looks he kept getting from the ninja populace as well as the civilian one.

"Now…we have to wait for the team that is being assembled, much as I hate to wait. And for now, we are awaited at the Uchiha compound."

-:-

Omake

She skipped happily down the street with a shopping bag on her arm.

"Stop whistling! It's annoying as hell!"

Used to such biting remarks from her friend, she didn't even bat an eyelash.

"But it's such a beautiful day! And I get to wear my new coat! Isn't it pretty?" she asked, doing a twirl that made the red material open wide around her body like wings.

She only got a flat stare for her trouble.

"Come on!" she pouted. "You're so mean, Atama-san! I thought you'd like it, since it's red and all! Don't you like red? You must, right? Since you love blood so much! If you didn't like red, you wouldn't like blood as much, since it would eventually sicken you, right?"

He gritted his teeth, growling. How dare that little girl sass him?!

"Watch your mouth, pinkie-girly, if you don't want your entrails to cover the fucking ground!" he threatened her with his best glare. If only she didn't remain unfazed. Was she used to his death threats? Maybe he should threaten her less often so that when he did, she took him seriously.

"Oh, you wouldn't do that, Atama-san!" she chirruped, hugging him tightly.

"And how would you be so sure of _that_, you damn heathen?" he growled in her hair.

"Well, you like me, right? And besides, if you did it, you would die, and you like to live too much to die so stupidly, ne? 'Cause that's what eternity is for, ne?"

Damn her innocent smile.

_One day, I swear I'll kill her._

His thoughts had no bite to them, but he was the only one to know that, and as such it was easy to banish the knowledge from his mind.

He grumbled under his breath something she could not hear, but that did not matter. Atama-san liked to do that sometimes. He could be so silly!

"And why the hell do you feel the need to carry me, you fool?! Reattach me to the rest of my body already!"

She lifted him up to eye level and pouted some more.

"But Atama-san! People look at me all scared-like when you walk with me. So I thought today I could carry you, and look! They're not nearly as scared!" she exclaimed joyously with a large encompassing gesture at the civilians around.

Some of them, in fact, even dared to crack a smile at the picture they made, for Sakura had put a large hat on Hidan's head to shield it from the sun. She had tied a piece of cloth around his stump of a neck to prevent it from bleeding all over the place—said cloth was getting redder and redder, but at least it didn't drip on her (two shades of red together in a piece of clothing wasn't pretty, everyone knew that)—and it looked like a prince's scarf, which was great, considering Atama-san was really pretty when he didn't speak. Were all princes like that?

Well, that didn't matter. Atama-san was hers, at least.

"Well, stop it immediately. The fucking deal was that I have to be beheaded every night, not that I am to be paraded around the whole FUCKING village like this!"

At the outburst, most of the gossiping villagers looked away, pretending they had never been staring in the first place.

"Well…okaa-san seemed to think it was a good idea…"

"Of course! That heathen has a fucking vendetta against me!" he griped. One day, he would kill her…painfully. For a civilian, she had much imagination when it came to ways to kill him. Fortunately, poison could not kill him. But that didn't mean he couldn't get sick. And that only fuelled his hatred.

"Well…" she trailed off. "I'll reattach you when we go back, I promise."

"You had better, yeah! Otherwise, I'll find a way to use my fucking scythe against all of those heathens!"

She tuned him out. He would never do that, so she'd rather not dwell on it.

She beamed at him.

"I love you, Atama-san!"

"Aaaarrrrgh!"

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Whew! Can you believe I wrote all of this today? Yep. I'm rather proud. ^^

Did you enjoy the Hidan and Young Sakura part?


	94. Second, Get Yourself an Immortal

Aaaaand another chapter! Thanks for all the reviews, everyone! I really appreciate them and I'm glad you liked the Young Sakura/Hidan moment. As for the poll, remember that it's not about whether or not you'd like Kisame to die but about whether or not you could accept it if he died.

Read on, read on!

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Cold inhabited his body, but he was long past the time to shiver. Numbness had taken over, and he barely reacted to the pinprick in his arm.

"Food for today. See, I'm taking good care of you, Itachi-kun."

Liquid cold invaded his arm, the nutritive solution laced with a mild paralyzing poison rapidly reaching his shoulder before spreading through the rest of his body, giving him just enough nutrients that he wouldn't outright starve. However, that was countered by the tube that was nestled into the crook of his other arm, that one designed to drain him of his blood and weaken him. And it was working.

"Not talking today either, ne? What a pity. If only I could see your pretty eyes...But pretty eyes are dangerous, and I can't risk you trying to escape and injuring yourself."

A cold finger ran across his stitched eyelids. He pulled away, eliciting an amused laugh from his tormentor.

"Don't worry. Those will be taken off soon, when I take over your body and use that magnificent Mangekyou sharingan of yours..."

Disgust clogged his throat, but fortunately, the snake was already leaving...

-:-

Feeling that a change of pace was needed and having nothing better to do anyway since she had to wait for the Hokage to assemble a team—much to her dismay—Sakura wandered off on her own, desiring more than anything else to be alone at the moment. For once, she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She was so surrounded by people all the time that at times, she wanted a bit of fresh air.

And she needed time to manage her grief alone, i.e. without interference from well-meaning people. _Then _she'd be able to be the strong medic everyone seem to need. Because she certainly couldn't support everyone at the moment.

She let her feet lead her wherever they would go, and it seemed that her body still remembered when she had lived in Konoha and been on a team, for she found herself suddenly in front of Ichiraku's.

_How the hell did I get here…_

"Nee-chan!"

"Eh?"

She suspected she would have been jumped on and hugged with deadly strength, had the blonde boy not been sitting with his mouth full of his favourite kind of food.

"Naruto-kun! How are you?" she asked with a true smile, weaving her way through the customers of the restaurant.

"I'm happy!" answered the boy with a warm smile. "I get to have my favourite ramen AND my favourite nee-chan all in one day! This is a good day, ne?"

As she sat down next to him and ordered a pork ramen, she thought with sudden realization, _For some people, this is a good day. As many people as there are who are having a bad day, there must surely be twice as many people having a good one. Surely there are._

"What are you up to nowadays?" she asked him, genuinely interested in the answer.

"Ero-Sennin still didn't let me be his apprentice. How unfair is that?!" he complained petulantly. "Couldn't you talk to him, nee-chan?" he begged with puppy eyes.

She ruffled his hair with a chuckle.

"I could, but wouldn't it lose all meaning then? If you don't prove yourself, how can he take you seriously?"

"I know…" he sighed despondently into his bowl. "That orange toad is just too hard to catch!"

"Hm…But doesn't that teach you how to be stealthier, more cunning and faster?" she murmured, contemplating a particularly tasty-looking pork morsel.

"Yeah…" he said after a while. "It's true that I sneak more easily into jiji's office now. But I still wish I could catch that toad!"

"Have you tried using flies?" she said idly, sipping at the broth of her ramen.

"Flies?"

"Well, it _is_ a toad, after all. Ne?"

While gears turned in his head, she allowed herself a small, secretive smile. She had no doubt Naruto's tenacity would win over the toad and Jiraiya. Besides, he was the type of person you just couldn't hate.

"But," she added mischievously, sensing the very toad they had been talking about sitting on top of the roof eating a bowl of ramen and smoking leisurely, "you're not the only one to like ramen, Naruto-kun." She pointed upwards with a finger and waited for the hint to sink in.

"I'll get him this time, dattebayo!"

With a war cry, the boy propelled himself out of his stool and shot for the roof. Moments later, she heard him yell at the toad to wait for him, dammit, and the sound of the exuberant boy slowly faded away into the distance. She allowed herself a small mirthful chuckle. Naruto would never change.

She let out a happy sigh. This was just what she'd needed.

_Alright. I feel better now._

With a clearer mind and a more serene countenance, she paid for her meal—and Naruto's—and left her seat with a word of thanks to Teuchi.

_Time to return to the Uchiha compound._

As she returned to the flow of people on the street, the nagging feeling she had been aware of at the back of her head intensified slowly, giving her an idea.

_Oooh…I think going back to the Uchiha compound may have to wait._

A feral smile bloomed on her face, one that she wiped out a moment later, before any children could see her and run to their mothers, crying.

She positively stalked down the street, headache growing in intensity until her head could have split open and she wouldn't have known the difference.

"Hello, Sakura-chan," she said softly to the cheerful young girl.

"Nee-sama?!" exclaimed the girl in question, surprised to see the medic appear suddenly in front of her.

"How are you?" she asked the flabbergasted girl.

"I…I'm fine, but…what are you doing here?"

"Oh, just had a little business to take care of around here. I just saw Naruto-kun, actually, and I caught sight of you. You appear to be well."

"I am! I have a lot of fun everyday with Atama-san!"

"I see…I'd like to borrow him, if you don't mind."

Cocking her head to the side, the youngest girl nodded, trusting. "Okay. See you later, Atama-san!" she chirped, handing the grumbling head to the medic. It was not the first time that Hidan had been borrowed from her, and every time he had been given back to her by one of those masked people, so she supposed this would be no different.

"Thank you," said the medic, forcing herself not to throw the head as far from her as she could. "I have to go see the Hokage, but it was nice to see you."

"Yeah, you too!" said the younger girl with a smile. Well, maybe she could go and visit Ino-Pig now that she didn't have a "creepy little head" attached to her.

-:-

"Heya, Hokage-sama," said the medic, barging into the Sandaime's office unceremoniously.

He looked up from his paperwork just as she slammed Hidan's head onto a pile of mission reports. Both of them ignored his grumbled curses as she said, "I need to borrow this, and the body that goes with it."

The old man looked at the head in distaste, lips tugging down, and then at the medic.

"…Right."

"I have a grudge against this bastard, but I'm willing to put that behind me momentarily. You see, he'll have no choice but to obey me, unless he wishes to kill himself. And I could really use an immortal guy against Orochimaru."

"So you want me to let an S-class nuke-nin back into the wild."

There was a beat of silence, punctuated only by the grumbled curses of the lone head that the other two ignored on purpose.

"To put it bluntly, yeah."

"I'll think about it."

"That's good enough. Thank you, Hokage-sama."

Not feeling like being in the presence of a person who had tried to gleefully kill her just because, Sakura left Hidan's head on the desk, chuckling to herself as the Hokage took it gingerly at arm's length and asked his secretary to take it away.

-:-

"What is making you so happy, sensei?" asked Mikoto curiously. Sakura had a self-satisfied look on her face that hadn't been there when they had parted after seeing the Hokage. Far from that, in fact. What had happened in the meantime?

"I might have just booked an immortal for my little suicide mission," replied Sakura, eating her apple gleefully.

"An immortal?"

"Yeah, the guy who tried to kill me. He is kept as a pet by the young girl I was imprisoned with."

She took another rabbit-shaped apple slice and bit into it with a smile.

"A pet?"

"Yeah, long story."

"I think I know who you're talking about. But wouldn't it be dangerous for him to accompany you?"

"Yeah, the Hokage thought so, too, but he can't do anything or thanks to the seal on his neck, he'd kill himself."

"Is that so…I suppose it _would_ be useful to have someone immortal on your side."

She smirked.

"Yeah, especially one I can order around. Me and him, we have a lot of unresolved issues."

Mikoto took a sip of her goblet of tea with a nod, always the proper lady.

"I hope…you can find my son, sensei…I really do…"

"He means a lot to me," murmured Sakura, sobering up. "I'll get him back if I have to return to hell to do it."

Mikoto smiled sadly. "Hopefully, that won't be necessary."

"Yeah. Hopefully."

They lapsed into pensive silence.

"Tadaima!"

"Ah, anata is back. Can you get Satsuki-san and Hoshigaki-san? They are napping in their rooms, but I think it is time someone wakes them up. I am going to set the table."

While she disappeared inside, Sakura sighed, contemplating the sakura tree in the garden. The leaves were starting to fall, many of them littering the ground already.

_Like me…_

"Come on, Sasuke-kun," she whispered, gently ruffling the hair of the black-haired child currently using her lap as a pillow.

Twin pools of warm black opened up at her. oh, how she wished they belonged to another…

"Nee-san?"

"Hai, Sasuke-kun. We are going to eat. Go wash your hands, ne?"

He suddenly hugged her firmly, much to her surprise. She had never known Sasuke to be a cuddler or much for physical relationships, but then again, this Sasuke was not the one who had traumatically lost his entire clan to the hands of his older brother.

"I dreamed you left and never came back…"

Her heart froze in her chest. He was way too perceptive for his own good, even if he didn't know what was going on and what was at stake.

"Don't worry, Sasuke-kun…I'll be back, of course. I may not visit often, but I always make it a point to come and see you, ne?" she said reassuringly, happy that he didn't yet know how to recognize when she was lying. "I always do, so don't worry…"

She wished she could believe her own words…

She kissed the crown of his head and waited patiently for him to release her. With a deep intake of breath and a nod, he eventually did so, and they both entered the house. She had been planning on going directly to Satsuki's and Kisame's rooms, but Fugaku, who had been conversing with his wife in low tones looked up when they entered and nodded to her.

"Ah, sensei. I have news for you. I have seen Nara Shikaku-san. He has been summoned by the Hokage to work on assembling a team for your needs. According to him, it should be done soon. By tomorrow, you will be able to go."

"That's great…"

_At last. Now I can finally go to Suna._

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Whew! Now that this is done and over with, I can finally concentrate on the next chapter, which promises to be more interesting. Whoohoo!


	95. Third, Beg the Kazekage

Welcome to this 95th chapter of The Blind and the Unseeing! I'm amazed myself that I have managed to write that much. It's all thanks to you guys. You made me write when I had no inspiration, you encouraged me when I was feeling down, and you helped me improve my writing. I love you guys!

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She was going to fight her the whole way through, that much she knew beforehand.

"Satsuki-chan, you have to stay here. Mikoto-sama and Fugaku-sama have kindly offered to let you stay in their home for the time being."

"What? Iie! Bring me with you! Why won't you let me accompany you to Suna?" asked the aristocrat with a pout.

"Well, first of all, we'll be much closer to the snake's lair, so the chances of being attacked are greater."

"Sure, but there will be several ninja from this village, so I should be more protected, right?" challenged Satsuki.

"Not necessarily. And you could be used against us if you are caught, which will be more of a handicap. Besides, even if you came to Suna, it wouldn't be that good."

"Why not? I was useful here, wasn't I?"

Sakura rubbed the sides of her head, which was starting to ache from all the arguing. She was losing her patience and fast, and she rather preferred to have this conversation calmly instead of destroying the nearby furniture with her bare hands.

"I don't have the same relationship with the Kazekage as I have with the Hokage," she tried to explain, punching Kisame in the arm when he snorted.

"And why not? You help both of their villages, so what's so different?" said the defensive girl.

"Maybe the fact that she nearly killed the Kazekage's eldest son..." said Kisame in a singsong voice.

"That's a tale for another time," said Sakura before Satsuki could inquire about the incident. "But that's right. And I have a strange relationship with the Kazekage's youngest son who is a rather dangerous kid. I.e., he kills people very often without control. I don't want to put you in danger, because if we go to Suna, I will for sure see Gaara-san, if only because he'll sense me coming." Satsuki opened her mouth, and Sakura rushed to finish her argumentation: "_And_ don't forget that you need a very special diet if you don't want to regress mentally. We managed to secure that during our travel here, but it will be much more difficult on our way to Suna. As a medic, I can't approve that. So no matter what, you're staying here, and with no arguing, as you had agreed to back home."

Satsuki clenched her teeth, eyes hard, but as neither Sakura nor Kisame reacted, she eventually nodded grudgingly.

It didn't please her, but she would do as she was told.

"Just...promise me you'll come back," she said at length. "Promise me this isn't the last time I see you."

Unable to promise any such thing, Sakura only replied, "I'll do my best."

-:-

"I wish I was here on vacation," said Sakura thoughtfully, waiting for the Hokage's team at the gates. "Then I could visit everyone at my leisure. I haven't had time to see the Nara, for one. I'd have liked to laze around with them. Perhaps play a game of shogi or two. Yeah..."

Kisame nodded in understanding. "Yeah. I wonder how the bug boy is doing."

She smiled slightly, remembering that the blue man had become rather fond of the Aburame. Which led her to thinking of Sai...

Something bumped her hand gently, requesting a scratch behind the ears. She unconsciously did so, still lost in thoughts.

"The others are coming soon."

Others?

She snapped to attention, awareness flooding her at once.

"Sai-san!" she exclaimed, flabbergasted. Of all the people the Hokage could have chosen, she had not imagined he would trust Sai enough to send him.

"It is me," he agreed emotionlessly, sitting astride an ink tiger that growled at her for stopping her tender ministrations.

"Wow, I...I don't know what to say...how have you been?" she asked, flustered—as usual, the boy remained apathetic through it all.

"That is a strange question."

"Is it so much?" she wondered aloud. "I still honestly wish to know."

Sai nodded. "I am well."

She smiled warmly at him. "That's good."

Soon enough, other ninja arrived, and she was glad to see that Genma happened to be one of them.

"Ah, the little sensei! I still remember your massages!" exclaimed the senbon-sucking man with a large smile. "Any chances of me getting one or two anytime soon?"

"Why not?" she replied lightly. "Unless things happen on the way, I will, I promise."

"Good! I'll hold you up to that!"

"Is there anyone else coming?" she wondered.

"Oh, Kakashi-san's coming, but I don't know how late he'll be. Especially considering the Green Beast of Konoha is looking for him. There are as many chances of him being in bed as there are of him running away from Gai-san somewhere in the village."

"Great… Two idiots…" she sighed without any bite to her words, a half smile on her face.

-:-

Surprisingly, they weren't attacked on their way to Suna—she had half expected an ambush at some point, but appeared that Orochimaru was going to lay low. Apparently, the snake didn't feel like playing with his food yet.

As agreed upon, the Konoha ninja didn't get out of their country. That wasn't to say they would go back to their village, however. In fact, they were going to scout around in search of clues of Orochimaru's passage in the area.

That left Sakura and Kisame to head alone to Suna. Sakura didn't much like the sun, but Kisame outright hated it. He was a man used to large expanses of water. In this desert with nothing in sight other than sand, sand, sand and more sand, he didn't feel comfortable at all.

"Kisame-kun, will you be alright?" asked Sakura, sensing her companion's foul mood. They were getting nearer Suna, but they still had a ways to go yet.

"Aa. I had just forgotten how much I hate this place. I feel like a dried fish," he grouched.

"Sorry. And you'll probably have to wait at the gates, too. I don't know if the Kazekage will let you go in the village."

"I know. Don't worry, I'll be on my best behaviour."

"I hope all goes well…"

He ran a sweaty hand through her hair, tousling it even more than it already was. With a shriek, she swatted it away, exclaiming that she was already sweaty and dirty enough without his help.

-:-

Just as she had thought, Kisame was stopped at the gates. The large man didn't kick up a fuss, only let himself fall on the ground in the shade with a wave at her.

"Go on, you know where to find me. I'll just sit here and make nice with these fellows," he told her calmly.

"…Alright. I'll come back as quickly as I can," she promised, and then she was off.

As it turned out, she wasn't able to go straight to the Kazekage's office. She was halfway there when she suddenly landed flat on her face, feet unable to move.

_I should have expected this._

She smirked to herself.

_Now, where is he?_

"You have finally come back."

_Oh. Right there._

"Ah, Gaara-san."

The red-haired boy, as apathetic as ever, stepped down from his perch on top of a pile of crates.

"I'm happy to see you, but would you mind releasing my feet?" she asked calmly. "I'd rather like to regain control over my feet."

"I suppose I could do that," he replied slowly, thinking to himself that she had never broken her promises to him, so she wouldn't run away from him now. It did help that the girl had never seemed to be afraid of him, even knowing his reputation.

The sand slowly drained away from her feet, and she got up from her sprawled position.

"I was going to see the Kazekage," she told him. "Maybe once my business with him is concluded, we can spend some time together."

Those big jade eyes blinked once, twice, and he nodded.

"I will take you there," he said firmly, not wishing to have to wait any longer than strictly necessary. He didn't like to wait, and it was solely because it was Sakura that he allowed her to do as she wished. She was a rather obedient property of his, and he had learned that when something of yours does well, you must encourage its attitude. Positive reinforcement, he believed it was called.

He showed her the way, trusting her to follow him—she did, which pleased him. They quickly arrived at the Kazekage's office, where she had to explain to Gaara that the matter that she had to talk to his father about was private and no, he couldn't come in with her. of course, this led to them having an argument in front of the door, Gaara wanting to come with her and Sakura refusing, until at last, exasperated by all the noise, the Kazekage opened his door so violently it almost went off its hinges and, glaring at them with all his might, ordered them sternly to come in.

They trailed in, Sakura more meekly than her red-haired counterpart; the Kazekage slammed the door shut behind them and, circumventing them, returned to his seat behind his imposing desk.

"Now," he glared, "tell me what this is about. And it better be good. Everytime you come here, sensei, it seems that bad things befall me. So talk, and make it quick."

She sighed inwardly. This wasn't going to be fun _or_ easy.

"Ano…I don't think Gaara-san should hear this…" she pleaded, only to get the brunt of the Kazekage's glare. He harrumphed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"If you have nothing to say, leave now."

_Could you make this any more difficult?_ she grouched to herself unhappily.

"Ano…Recently, I saved a girl. Soon after, she was killed by the notorious Orochimaru. Then my boyfriend, Itachi-kun, was kidnapped, and the medic he accompanied to my village was brutally murdered. I wish to ask your assistance in dealing with Orochimaru."

The older man stayed silent for a long moment. "How does this relate to me at all?" he asked at length. "These people mean nothing to me or my village."

"That is true," agreed the medic, "but Orochimaru is a threat to every village out there. If he killed one of Konoha's medics, he could very well kill one of yours the next time. And I believe that he may have a compound hidden somewhere in this country, so I'd like to ask for your help in finding it."

Unfortunately, Gaara's father didn't seem quite as interested in Sakura's words as his son. With a shrug of his shoulders, he said, "That remains to be seen. And so far, he has not moved against my village. I don't see why I should put my ninja in danger for something that may not even come to pass."

_Not again!_

Frowning, she prostrated herself in front of his desk in the best dogeza she had ever done in her life. Forehead to the ground, she begged solemnly, "Please, Kazekage-sama! Lend me your support!"

She would have stayed in that position all night if need be, but it appeared that someone didn't want that to happen. As it so often seem to happen in Suna, she found herself suspended upside down by her ankle.

"Uapp! What the—Gaara-san, put me down this instant!" she exclaimed, not amused in the slightest by his antics. Didn't he understand that a person's life was at stake here?!

"I'll go with you," he deadpanned, right in her face.

She opened her mouth, closed it without any word leaving her throat. Opened it once again, made a god impression of a carp, and finally threw her hands around his neck.

"Thank you! Gaara-san, thank you so much!"

In her teary and ecstatic state, she almost didn't hear it when a voice boomed loudly that he opposed it. Almost. But not quite.

_Right…he isn't independent in this time…_

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So you get to see Gaara once more. And he'll be there next time, too. I know that many people have asked me to bring him back. Are you happy that I did it?


	96. And Then Set the Trap

This chapter is a bit smaller than my usual ones, but it seemed like the perfect place to end it, so I indulged. I think it will still give you much to think about and consider until next week. I'm particularly fond of the last part. I think it reflects particularly well the characters.

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Gaara's jade eyes bore into his father's dispassionately. It was with a voice dripping with boredom that he said, "I don't care. I'm going."

There was a stare down for several long seconds, during which Sakura regained her sharp wits about her, and it was with a heavy heart that she agreed with the Kazekage, though probably for very different reasons.

"I..._really_ appreciate your willingness to help me, Gaara-san, but I think your father is right. You should stay in Suna."

Those jade eyes turned to her, like two marbles frozen solid.

"And why is that?" he asked in a deceptively calm voice. She was not fooled, however, for she knew him well—that, and she could feel his sand constricting her ankle more than before.

_Oh, I'm sure bringing a jinchuuriki to an organization that hunts them down would be a _great_ idea. Let's go on a picnic, shall we? We can discuss all about what they'll do to you if they catch you. Or we can talk about the snake, and what he'd like to try on you. Yeah, right. Like I can tell him that._

"You know, Gaara-san, the person I'm hunting down right now...he isn't a nice man." _Don't tell him he hurt you, or he'll want revenge for his possession, since he's the only one who can hurt what is his. _"He'll try to separate you from your mother, and he has means to do that. Means that would kill you. His organization is full of people like him, and I don't want to be the reason they get you."

He stared her down long enough for her blood to literally rush to her head. All of a sudden, she was flat on her stomach, face slowly regaining a normal colour and he was staring at her once more dispassionately.

"I don't want her to be taken from me. She is the only one who loves me."

Despite it being her who had played that card, she found herself sad for the boy who thought that love was out of his reach. Why had she brought that up? Couldn't she have used another way to convince him?

"What about me?" she asked quietly. "I like you."

For a moment, he looked like he didn't believe her entirely but wished to dearly. His outward appearance stayed the same, but she could feel his aura calming down, though staying troubled.

"Gaara-san..." she said slowly as an epiphany washed over her. "Did you...Did you think I came to Suna to see you only because you 'own' me? Did you think it was...because of duty?"

A profound silence was the only answer she got.

She slowly reached for the still boy and ran a hand through his crimson hair. When he didn't move away or react violently, she put her hand at the back of his neck and gently pulled him to her. Enveloping him loosely in a hug so that he didn't feel trapped, she gently soothed him. "I like you, Gaara-san. I really like you. I like spending time with you, looking at the stars on a rooftop with you, eating a sundae with you on a hot day...I like being around you. And that's because I truly, genuinely like you."

If anything, she wanted him to believe that.

He nodded ever so slightly in her chest; she sent a wave of chakra in his brain through the hand cupping the back of his neck, caught him as he slumped into her arms in dreamless sleep, and bowed her head over his sleeping form. "I'm sorry, Gaara-san," she murmured, "but I like you too much to let you be caught."

The Kazekage snorted, prompting her to focus on him once more, frowning.

"You spend too much time on that defective weapon," he told her simply.

"And you have spent too much time in your tower if your vision of the world is this warped," she replied, brushing a strand of red hair away from Gaara's forehead. "I think...he's going to hate me for taking the choice away from him, but would you...please tell him it was to protect him? And that it's not because I don't believe in him?"

"He won't believe me," he pointed out to her.

"Maybe so," she agreed, "but I don't know if I'll come back, so..." She took a deep, steadying breath and bowed formally to him. "I thank you for taking the time to listen to me, Kazekage-sama, even though we could not come to an agreement."

She turned to leave, heart heavy but now feeling more stable, but his voice stopped her before she got to the door.

"I do not care for the Uchiha, but despite you being a pain to me in general, you are good for my village, and your presence stimulates my men, as they know that they'll have good care in your hands. I'll send a team of scouts with you, but they will not interfere unless you are in peril. Do try to come back alive."

Throat clogged by emotion, she bowed deeply in heartfelt thanks.

-:-

"How did it go?" asked Kisame as she approached him.

"Not as good as it could have, but not as bad either," she replied.

"So, when are we leaving?"

"In a few minutes."

He nodded, settled back comfortably against the wall and revelled in the shade, knowing that soon he would be under that terribly hot sun once more.

As they waited, an old woman made a beeline for them. An old woman who wasn't unknown to Sakura.

"Chiyo-baa-sama!" exclaimed the young medic. "I did not expect to see you. How are you?"

"Better than you, I imagine. I heard about your young Uchiha, and I thought you should know...The man you're hunting down, he has been sighted recently with my grandson. His name is Sasori, and he's _very_ good with poisons. Maybe you'll encounter him on the way, so be careful."

"If I encounter him..." began Sakura, unsure of how to phrase her thoughts. Fortunately, the old woman seemed to know what she was thinking.

"Don't hesitate to protect yourself. If killing him is necessary, then...I'll finally be able to mourn properly. I already know that you're quite able to defend yourself, judging from the sorry state you left that ninja you were looking for in. He still hasn't forgotten you, I should think. But my grandson...he's in a whole other category. He won't go down that easily."

Sakura nodded, remembering fighting the puppeteer years ago. Her fingers twitched, and she forced herself not to subconsciously bring her hand to her stomach, where the scar testament to the fight resided today still.

"I know," she said solemnly with the barest nod.

A soft, sad but sincere smile crossed the elder's face.

"I wish you good luck, sensei."

-:-

"So, what now? Want me to lead you to the compound where you were imprisoned or do you have another plan?" asked Kisame, eyeing the scouting team the Kazekage had swiftly assembled.

"Unless it was in the near area, I think that wouldn't get us far. Besides, I guess you tried to follow the trail back then, didn't you?" she mused.

"I did," he agreed. "It didn't get me far."

"I thought so," she said slowly. "But fortunately, we have something Orochimaru most dearly wants."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"Why, me, of course. After all, he did have me taken from Konoha, way back when."

"I see..."

A cruel smirk bloomed on the young medic's face, looking out of place on such a sweet-looking girl. But Sakura was not a normal girl, and neither were the problems she was entangled in.

"_And_ we've got someone to meet at the border, someone who might very well change things in our favour."

-:-

"Get the fuck away, you miserable volatile!"

Hidan glared, feeling his killing intent rising steadily. He hated being controlled, and he hated it when he couldn't kill those who annoyed him. And that damn bird-like creature was the most annoying kind there was: cheerful to a fault and totally immune to his threats, much like a certain irritating pinkette who liked to carry his head in her arms.

He shook his scythe; Chiyoko twisted, losing her footing momentarily only to twirl on the underside of the last blade and reattach herself firmly on it. She smiled, tutted, and settled comfortably for a nice little nap, feeling no qualms in using a weapon as a support to hang upside down to sleep.

"Now, now, don't be prissy. Straight ahead. In twenty miles, head north. I think I'll sleep till then."

"Get off, you fucking perch! My scythe isn't a perch!"

"Of course it isn't," she said detachedly.

"I'll fucking kill you."

"Nope, you won't. But you know that, ne?" she said airily with a yawn.

He glared some more, clenching his hands on the handle of his scythe, grumbling under his breath that he wondered why _she_ was the one to come along with him—not counting the person he was supposed to meet but really didn't want to.

"You really annoy me."

"I know."

She smiled secretively to herself.

"I think you'll hate even more the guy we're going to see. Or maybe he's the one who'll hate you at first sight. Who knows..."

He growled. Damn that seal...He was no freaking puppy to be leashed!

_One day, I'll kill them all..._

-:-

Sakura headed alone to the north, leaving Kisame and the scouts to disperse in other directions. Hopefully they would be successful in their endeavours, or more so than the Konoha teams that had accompanied her to the border.

_If I could only get a hawk from one of them..._

Being good at genjutsu herself, she hoped to find one hiding the snake's lair, but the vast area she had to look through made such a mission rather hazardous.

It was not, however, that she was without a plan. It was one that didn't sit well with Kisame, but if he came with her, she knew that her chances of success would drop considerably.

_Come on, snake...the mouse is in the trap. Act quickly if you're hungry. And I know you're _very_ hungry..._

And the gamble was on. Act or not act, step forward or take a step back, it was all a question of nuances. Who would act first?

She could only hope that the snake hadn't, like her, made preparations first.

Something appeared well to her left, at such a distance that she could barely sense it.

_Aah. There he comes. Wait...No way!_

-:-

The door to his cell opened with the usual creak that announced bad news. And as expected, the bearer of bad news entered, though what he did this time surprised the young Uchiha heir.

"You know, my young boy, I realized that I had completely forgotten it was your birthday recently. Silly me, wouldn't you agree?"

What was the madman going on about this time? And did he truly wish to know?

"So forgive me for being remiss in my duties as a host." The unnaturally pale man cleared his throat and proceeded to do the most disturbing thing Itachi could have ever expected of him.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, Itachi-kun...I've a pinkette for you!"

His heart froze in his chest after doing a double-flip and landing at the very bottom of his stomach.

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And _now_ we can have fun. Anyone up for some action?


	97. Traps and Laughter

It was really hard to write this, believe it or not. Things wouldn't come out the way I wanted them to, but I finally managed to finish it today. Whew! And as promised, Hidan plays a part in this; from the very beginning, even.

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"Do I look like a fucking messenger boy?!"

Chiyoko wisely didn't answer the fuming immortal, which would only have served to irritate him more.

She yawned and settled more comfortably on the underside of his scythe, which angered him that much more. He cracked his hands, visibly refraining from twisting her neck.

"Go left and we're there."

"At last," he grumbled. He did as instructed, then smashed open the door to the house he had stopped in front of and stalked down a hall, through a humid room and out into the open at the back of the building, paying no mind to the screams of the people he had disturbed roughly.

He stalked to the large basin at the center of the place, never caring that his clothes got drenched along the way, and with a swipe of his scythe, cut in two an overturned bucket floating innocently at the surface of the hot water.

His hand plunged immediately in the expanse of smoking, opaque water and retrieved a spluttering and sheepish Sannin.

"Ah...haha...Let me go?" asked Jiraiya uncertainly, sensing the surrounding area become hotter and hotter as the surrounding women—those who hadn't had time to escape as Hidan had barged into the onsen—glared hotly, arming themselves with buckets.

"You're coming with me, fucking pervert," growled Hidan, dragging the white-haired man by the scruff of his neck. Somehow, the women had particularly good aim when it came to perverts, as only Jiraiya was pelted with buckets while they left the place.

"Eh?"

-:-

Her mind froze for the briefest moment, and only one thought flashed through her mind.

_This isn't possible._

In the background, Inner was urging her franticly to move, to get out of there, to do _something_!

She knew he was sent by Orochimaru—couldn't be otherwise—but it simply wasn't possible! It wasn't!

_Things aren't happening the way they were supposed to!_

-:-

Orochimaru smirked to himself. Indeed, things were going his way. This was going to be a good day.

He thought he would go and visit his little captive, but then thought better of it. It would be much better and amusing if he waited until his next guest came.

_Any time now._

-:-

She wheezed, tried to regain her breath.

_Could I have calculated wrong?_

He was unmerciful, broke her tibia, didn't react as she screamed in pain.

_Could I have been wrong?_

She stabbed his knee with a kunai, felt the articulation give way under the blade, knew the paralyzing poison should have started working on him instantly—he remained unaffected.

A heavy blow to her temple stole all thoughts from her.

-:-

Jiraiya was, for lack of a better word, alarmed. He managed to put his hate for Hidan aside momentarily to listen to the immortal's explanations as to why he had seeked him out. Or, rather, he had tried to listen to the grumblings, but between the curses and the threats, he had finally decided to listen to Chiyoko instead. And what he had learned had not exactly pleased him or put him at ease.

"She wants to _what?!_"

"To hunt him down. She intends to use his fascination with her to attract his attention."

"Does she want to get captured again or something?!" asked the old man, aghast.

The bat nodded somberly. "Hai, she does."

"Is she crazy? She's _willingly_ acting as bait to draw him out, knowing he'll take her and she'll be subjected to whatever his ill mind cooks up?!"

He paced, making wild motions with his arms as he talked in frazzled frenzy.

"I can't let her do that—we can't let her do that—she's crazy—I—"

"She's willing to do that and endure it if it means she has a chance to save Itachi-san."

"She's crazy!" he yelled at her, not willing to listen to her.

"She's in love."

He stopped pacing, air swooshing out of him with a whoosh. He suddenly looked ten years older, defeated.

"I know," he said quietly.

For a long time, they remained silent, and only Hidan's grumbling punctuated the silence.

Both of them ignored it, for the bubble around them was too strong to break.

"Why did you come for me?" he sighed, running a hand through his long mane of hair.

"Sakura-chan knows that she won't be able to take on this Orochimaru alone. She hopes you can fight alongside her. We are to return soon if you refuse or if we hadn't managed to locate you."

He gritted his teeth. He had always known that he would have to fight Orochimaru one day, but now it was sinking in that he didn't have the luxury to leave it to others anymore.

"Alright," he said, then his voice became stronger as his determination took over. "Alright. I'll help."

"At last!" exclaimed Hidan, annoyed but grateful that the talks were now over and action could commence. "I hate this place. When can we finally kill some people?"

-:-

Itachi frowned at the snake man. He held his breath, hoping against all hope that Orochimaru was lying. He had to be. It wasn't possible. Sakura was safe and sound in her medical village, and he doubted Orochimaru would dare to attack it.

His ears picked up the sound of something being dragged into his cell, and then there was Orochimaru's smug voice once again.

"This is perfect. This precious little medic of yours is going to further my plans so much more, Itachi-kun. She has knowledge that I will take _much pleasure_ in extracting from her. And then I'll make her bear your child and take over his body once he's old enough. An Uchiha host body with perfect chakra control would be _perfect_."

"You're completely insane." He couldn't manage to say anything else. He was flabbergasted at the depths of Orochimaru's insanity and obsession.

"Iie. I'm driven. But I didn't come here to discuss with you. I just brought you your little lover so you two can say hello and goodbye. After all, I don't think she'll be in much condition to speak to you after. Take it as a belated birthday gift."

The unnaturally pale man kicked at the package he had dragged in, eliciting a grunt from it.

_Please let this be a henge!_

"Ow…"

_This voice…_

"Say hello, _sensei_."

"Heh. Orochimaru."

_It really is!_

"I really don't like your attitude," said the Sannin nonchalantly with what Itachi could only guess was a kick to Sakura's stomach, if her wheeze was any indication.

"Sensei!" he gasped, outraged, in response to Orochimaru's treatment of his beloved person.

"It—achi-kun?" she called out in between gasps, sounding more tentative than surprised.

"Aa. But…how are you, Sakura-chan?" he asked uncertainly, not sure whether this was a plot from Orochimaru to mess with his head.

"Better than you, I suppose," she answered slowly, and by the sound of it, she was trying to sit.

"Not for long," murmured the Sannin with a kick to her face that made her crash to the ground once more with a grunt. "Off we go. Say goodbye."

She groaned, and he could hear her being dragged off, but it was her last words that froze him.

"Never forget, Orochimaru, that you only caught me because I gave you a chance to. Believe me, you'll live to regret it."

What did she mean?

Could he dare to hope?

Or was she only antagonizing the Sannin?

-:-

Kisame almost beheaded the Suna ninja when he was told Sakura had disappeared. Expecting the news didn't mean he expected to be told that besides a clear battle area, there was no trace of either Sakura or her assailant and that as they could find no trail to follow, they were abandoning the pursuit.

"Why the fuck did you even come, you incompetent idiot?!" he asked, aghast, fingers itching to grab Samehada's handle. The sword growled, aching for blood, and whined as Kisame merely clenched his hands and whirled around.

_Time to go back to the border._

-:-

Hidan and Jiraiya met up with Konoha's teams merely a few hours before Kisame did. They had ample time to get up to speed on what had happened, and then for Jiraiya to throw a fit, which only amplified when Kisame came with the bad news.

"Then what the fuck are we supposed to do now?!" yelled the old man, ready to strangle somebody. "We have no way of finding her, is that it? Did you even try to follow the trail, Hoshigaki-san?!"

Kisame looked at him flatly. "Do I look like someone who would take a Suna ninja at his word?"

He snorted, crossing his arms, and looked pointedly at Hidan.

"But chibi-sensei prepared the best trap possible, right, dog?"

Jiraiya looked confused. "I'm not sure I'm following you."

"Knowing how Orochimaru is, she acted as bait, knowing he would not let her go so easily. Which means we can use the Jashinist to our advantage." A sadistic smirk grew on his face. "Didn't you know that once he's drawn someone blood with his scythe, he can trace them anywhere?"

Hidan crossed his arms over his chest, unhappy to be observed so closely by everyone.

"Heh. So what, fuckers?"

A dangerous growl escaped Kisame's throat. In an instant, he grabbed Hidan's throat and pulled him close until they were inches apart. "So you're gonna pay your debt. And you're gonna do it now."

Hidan looked at him with bored eyes and put the tip of his pinky finger into his ear to clean it. Clearly, he didn't feel concerned at all.

"Why would I help that fucking pathetic girl? She's no problem of mine. Find another guy."

Kisame glared and squeezed Hidan's throat a bit more. His fingers were starting to leave indents on the immortal's neck, but neither one cared, too busy glaring hatefully at each other.

"Yeah, you're going to do it, bitch. Because if you don't, I'll show you in just how many pieces I can slice you, and Samehada would be _more_ than happy to demonstrate. Now get on with it!"

Choking, Hidan was thrown to the ground, where he managed to glare darkly at Kisame for a moment before getting to his feet and leading the way with plenty of growling and grumbling. Apparently, unraveling the bandages from Samehada carried the message across.

-:-

Mouth bloody, Sakura laughed hysterically in Orochimaru's face. Despite the torture, everything seemed like a joke to her, and it was starting to annoy her tormentor.

"Stop laughing or I'll rip your tongue out!"

"But then I won't be able to tell you anything," she replied, teeth crimson.

"You have hands; you can write."

"If you'd reattach my fingers..."

He glared at her disdainfully.

"I think I'll keep those, thank you," he said, unimpressed. "Who know, I might even cook them and feed them to your precious Itachi-kun."

She felt blood drip from the three places where she had previously had fingers; it hurt, the pain was lessening slightly to a dull throbbing but it hurt, yet somehow, her mind didn't seem to be on the right track. Everything was a joke to her, everything was surreal. Nothing mattered, nothing he said was real anyway...

_**Get a grip, damn it! That's just the drug speaking!**_

An uncontrollable laughter took over her.

Looking at her, Orochimaru snorted. She was drifting already. He brought her back to reality for a moment with a kick to the ribs.

"This is what I should have done in the beginning...Your mind is already shattering...Whatever you know is not important enough to lose my time on finding out. I'll have all eternity to find it out for myself."

She didn't answer.

There were fragments of light dancing around her, so pretty and colorful...Bright pinks, oranges, yellows and reds...

Inner's voice was becoming more and more distant.

_**Stay awake, fool!**_

Anyway, who was she to give her orders? She could go to sleep if she damn well wanted, and what was to keep her from indulging in those nice lights?

Someone was laughing.

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Damn, this was hard to write! And now the guys come to the rescue!


	98. Immortals

Hello, all! Sorry I didn't manage to update yesterday. It's becoming harder and harder for me to keep a stable updating schedule, but I'm doing my best to update once a week. Hopefully you'll like this new chapter of mine. Enjoy, ne?

By the way, in 5 reviews, I'll have received 4,000 reviews for this story! You guys are amazing! So as thanks, I'll answer one question my 4,000th reviewer will have about this story. Whoohoo!

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Sprawled on her back, arms and feet spread eagle, she grinned insanely into the nothingness of her cell. Everything was just so damn funny…

The door opened, catching her attention for but a moment before another bout of giggles took over her. Not even the kick in the ribs she received for ignoring her visitor could stop her uncontrollable giggles that turned into wheezed laughter. Everything was funny, funny, funny…

Pain bloomed in her face, but what was pain, really? Just a figment of her imagination, a signal sent to her brain, but was it really sent there now or was she imagining things once again?

And why should it matter anyway…

-:-

The Konoha teams weren't supposed to wander on Suna's territory, but as Hidan led the way like a bloodhound, they had to keep an eye on him, "just in case". Which meant that if they encountered any Suna ninja on their way, their presence could be justified by saying they were hunting down a notorious S-class nuke-nin, never mind that Konoha had been harboring him for a while now. Of course, Hidan wasn't quite happy being used in that way, even if it meant he'd have an opportunity to fight people.

All of them stuck close to Hidan, well aware that he was the one who would lead them to Sakura. Kakashi thought privately that he rather looked like one of his dogs, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

It was a good thing he did, too, because Hidan was more than riled up, as shown by how he exploded when a sand dune spat a volley of kunai at them. With a mighty war cry, he rushed at the dune, dislodging Chiyoko who tried in vain to warn him to be careful.

Left behind, the group had to contend with the secondary attack that sent everyone scattering.

"Be careful! They were expecting us!"

Kisame glanced at Hidan—if the bastard tried a fast one on them, he'd lob his head off—only to see a most unexpected sight. Cursing mentally, he turned to Jiraiya, who had followed him and was now battling with two puppets nearby.

"I know how Itachi-san got caught!" he yelled at the older man.

"What was that?" Jiraiya yelled back, barely managing to avoid a swipe at him.

"That man over there, the one Hidan's fighting—see him?"

Jiraiya glanced quickly in direction of the Jashinist and nodded. "What about him?"

"He's not supposed to be here, that's what about him."

Fully intrigued by now, Jiraiya frowned, not understanding.

"And what does _that_ mean?"

"_That_ man I've seen lying in his own blood, very much dead, following chibi-sensei's escape. Understand now? He is, for lack of a better word, a dead man."

This time, it was Jiraiya's time to curse.

-:-

Meanwhile, Hidan swiped at his opponent with deadly glee, only to be severely disappointed when it didn't seem to have any impact on the other man.

"What the fuck's wrong with you, huh? Don't you feel anything, you fucking heathen?!"

He handled his scythe with his usual appetite for blood, but much to his annoyance, cutting the man up didn't seem to faze him at all. However, a cut leg was sure to slow him down, that much he was certain of.

Blood gushed out from the man's thigh in a bright spurt, and he smirked, knowing he had just cut an artery in two. Before long, he would bleed to death. How satisfying.

He froze for a moment when the abnormally distant man didn't react other than to jump at him.

"The fuck?!"

He glanced at the thigh he had felt give way under the pressure of his scythe—where was the gash?

"What the fuck?!" he exclaimed louder still, dodging a mean-looking swipe of scalpels directed at his midsection.

"Please die," said the other, strangely dispassionate about the whole affair.

"The hell I will, yeah!"

If this was not enough, he would offer that guy's soul to Jashin. Let's see how he would deal with _that_!

-:-

"What do you know about that guy?" asked Jiraiya.

"Nothing much. Only that chibi-sensei killed him when she escaped. And _that_ I'm sure of!"

"Then that's either a corpse walking or someone using a henge."

"I don't think that's a henge. It would have dropped, what with all the injuries Hidan is inflicting upon him."

Jiraiya frowned, destroying a puppet—so many of them; when would this end?

"But then…It would mean Orochimaru is using a jutsu to resurrect that man…" He stopped, thinking hard about it. For a few minutes, both men destroyed puppets silently, until Jiraiya spoke up once more. "It could be…Tobirama Senju developed a jutsu, though didn't manage to perfect it…If Orochimaru did perfect it…"

"Alright, what's the thing?" asked Kisame with a grimace, knowing that whatever it was couldn't be good.

"Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei. By using a living person as a sacrifice, you can bring back someone from the dead. Then you can erase the personality of the revived person to control him or her more easily. And knowing my old teammate, that's probably what he'd do. Apparently, the puppet created is nearly impossible to kill because they can regenerate even if they blow up to smithereens and they have nearly limitless amounts of chakra. It's no wonder Itachi-san couldn't win. Not in these conditions."

Kisame cursed loudly.

"I get it. Can you deal with the puppets? I'll help Hidan get rid of the corpse. We can deal with it later if we immobilize it, right?"

"Well, theoretically, yeah…" trailed off the Sannin dubiously.

"Alright then. I'll let Samehada eat all the chakra it wants this time around. Ja ne!"

A hum of contentment resonated around them, coming from the sword that seemed quite intent on getting to eat more chakra than its owner's.

But Jiraiya didn't have time to think on that much longer as he went about exterminating more puppets. Hopefully, they would meet the puppet master soon.

-:-

Green slob oozed slowly but surely from the walls, undaunted by Inner's efforts to wipe it all away and repair the cracks where it seeped from. She worked steadfastly to get rid of it, but it never seemed to be enough to really get rid of it. Add to that the thick black fumes that rose from the floor, and she knew that she was fighting a losing battle.

"Fucking hell, can this get any worse?!" she cursed, wiping a trail of green slime from the wall with a hiss as it burned her hand when she came in contact with it. "Damn poisonous garbage!"

She hit the wall with a closed fist as though calling for someone on the other side, and called out loudly, "How long are you gonna let him have his way, huh?! Fight back, damn it!"

Only silence answered her.

-:-

Sai observed the surroundings with detached eyes, sitting atop a giant ink bird. On the ground under him, puppets and men alike danced a deadly tango of tangled limbs and blood, but that wasn't what interested him. As long as the puppet master was around, there would be puppets to fight against them, and unlike puppets, they were human and would eventually become tired, which could only bring about the death of his comrades.

His sharp eyes roamed across the land, but everywhere he could there were only dunes, sand, dunes and more dunes. Where could the puppet master be hiding?

He narrowed his eyes, looking for any inconsistency, anything that would prove to him that something was missing. He was sure that's where he'd find the one pulling the strings.

-:-

Hidan nearly kicked Kisame in the balls when the latter landed next to him, telling him clearly that he was going to help him since, apparently, he would not be able to win alone.

"Fuck off, bastard!" he yelled, quite ready to start a fight with the blue man.

"I hate you just as much as you do me, but you _will_ cooperate! I'll suck the corpse's chakra, so find a way to immobilize it!"

"I'm not your fucking lapdog, fucker!"

Even so, Hidan chose to follow Kisame's lead, for he was no fool and he had noticed that his opponent was not of the normal sort. As he swiped at him sideways, Kisame managed to land a blow on him that ripped him deeply from shoulder to waist. And yet, the moment they jumped away to avoid a counterattack, the gashes healed, body parts sticking together seamlessly.

"That plan of yours ain't gonna work, Fishie!"

"Shut up and try harder!"

Grinding his teeth, Hidan jumped away, drawing the sign of his god on the sand with the blood he had managed to draw out while Kisame distracted the corpse.

"I'll offer you soul to Jashin-sama, dead heathen!"

As soon as his skin turned black and the white markings appeared all over his body, he proceeded to stab himself in the thigh, noting with satisfaction that even though his opponent was dead, he was able to bleed just as much as a living person.

Noting that the cause of his injury was the Jashinist, the corpse didn't pay Kisame much attention and instead proceeded to send a volley of kunai and scalpels at Hidan. Fortunately, the silver-haired immortal was more than adept with his scythe, and used it with poise to detract them all from his person.

"Hey, do it again!" yelled Kisame, hacking at their opponent from behind.

"You don't need to tell me! Shut the fuck up and do your part!"

With a bloody smirk, Hidan stabbed both of his legs deeply and repeatedly, making sure to twist the kunai to inflict maximal pain. To his utmost satisfaction, their opponent faltered in his steps and tumbled, giving Kisame a chance to ram Samehada into the corpse's back, sending him sprawling to the ground. Putting his knee on the man's back, Kisame twisted Samehada deeper into his torso, pinning him to the hard sandy ground as easily as a butterfly. As Hidan stabbed his upper chest, arms and legs several more times, the corpse twitched, blood gushing out from wounds that soon closed, but not soon enough to save him. With Samehada pumping more and more chakra from the body, Kisame was free to use ninja wire to attach his hands on either side of him to kunai buried deeply into the hard soil. Doing the same to his legs, with Hidan joyously relishing in the numerous wounds he inflicted on the corpse, was a simple enough task—though only possible because both of them had ways of injuring him in unconventional ways and the knowledge of how to take him out—and so, Kisame soon twisted fingers in ways that would have sent anyone screaming for mercy.

Soft footsteps made the blue man look up. The death-like marking having faded from his skin, the Jashinist looked more human now, if you didn't count the many injuries he sustained.

"Guess that's it, huh?" said the immortal with a kick to the corpse's head. "You gonna let that fucking sword of yours in there?"

"No choice. It's what's making him feeble enough that we can restrain him. As long as Samehada doesn't get an indigestion we'll be fine," replied Kisame, getting up slowly with a mindful glance at their quarry.

Said sword hummed in contentment. Apparently, that wouldn't happen any time soon.

Hidan turned away, disinterested now that the ass-kicking was over with. "Well, just to making things clear, I was perfectly fine on my own, fucktard, you got that?"

"Sure you were," retorted Kisame with a roll of his eyes, dabbing at a gash in his arm with a ripped part of his shirt.

"Oh yeah, by the way, who's that fucking guy?" asked Hidan, looking at his blue comrade over his shoulder.

"Well, from what I know, he was Orochimaru's assistant. I believe his name was Kabuto."

-:-

Lethargy started to affect Inner. The toxic fumes she was inhaling were starting to affect her, and she could feel her consciousness fading from time to time, her mind becoming slower and slower as though it was walking through sludge. Her moments of clarity were becoming less and less; obviously, the corrosive poison was starting to gnaw at her, for she was Sakura's last defense against complete takeover of her mind, the last barrier against insanity and nothingness.

She blinked slowly, eyelids feeling so heavy she had trouble opening them again. Everything around her was green, a noxious, poisonous, unnatural emerald green. It took her a moment to realize she was lying down, covered in the toxic fumes, and that the slime from the wall was starting to encase her in a coffin that would eat at her until she was no more. And even then, she didn't have enough energy left to wipe it away from her body and fight back against the invasion.

"Fucking…hell…"

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Whew! Another hard one to write. And now you know who took Sakura. Were you surprised? I had this planned for _so_ long! Ever since I killed Kabuto, in fact.

Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei : Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation. It is a technique that allows a dead person to be revived through the sacrifice of a living person as long as you have some DNA from that person. You can then control the revived person who will have almost limitless chakra and will be able to regenerate at will.


	99. What Mortality and Immortality Mean

Sorry for the delay, everyone. Things are becoming crazy here, and it's not about to abate any time soon. Still, hopefully this will satisfy you. I quite like how it turned out.

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It turned out Sai didn't have to find the mysterious puppet master, as it was said puppet master who found him first. A volley of various pointy weapons were flung at him from the ground, slightly to his right, and his ink bird dissipated under him as he used it as a shield instantly to be able to dive out of the way.

He somehow managed to deflect all weapons thrown at him during his free fall to the ground, but only just, and was thus unable to properly take a look at his opponent. That was soon changed, however, as the puppet master chose to reveal himself to him.

_Young_, was all that passed through Sai's mind as he observed the young man in front of him. Could this really be the right person?

He didn't stop to consider that for long, however, as he knew plenty of people who were literally child assassins, and the young man erupted into action, sending half a dozen puppets flying at him.

He didn't have time to wonder for long how the man could control so many puppets at once—not forgetting the others that were currently entertaining the rest of his teammates—preferring to instead concentrate on staying alive.

He sprawled ink all over his scrolls in his hurry to draw animals to help him in his endeavors. Meanwhile, he had to avoid the various sharp weapons thrown or swung at him forcing him to cartwheel more than once. As expected, his drawings thus weren't as perfect as they usually were, but he figured he had a good excuse for that.

-:-

Jiraiya's eyebrows lifted so high on his forehead that they disappeared under his shaggy hair.

"Is that a one-eyed cat?" he wondered aloud.

"Nah, I think the other eye is hidden in its ear…" replied Kakashi slowly with a glance at the ink animal.

He dismembered a puppet just in time to let the Sannin get the message the cat was carrying.

"Hey, are we almost finished here?" asked Jiraiya.

"Not quite, why?"

"It seems Sai-san found the puppet master."

"Then let's go, the others can finish up here," said Kakashi, assessing the situation they were in. he had ample confidence that his teammates could handle the rest. They were all tired, but none of them sported more than superficial injuries—if you counted kunai sticking out of an arm or thigh superficial.

"Alright. Alright. Come after us when you're done, everyone!"

With that, the two fair-haired ninja ran off, following the cat nimbly through the dunes. A few puppets followed them, but they fended them off with relative ease, allowing for an escape most successful.

-:-

The puppet master Kakashi and Jiraiya found themselves facing was nothing like they expected. Young, handsome if cold, he was much different from what they had expected.

At first glance, he looked human. But then through the tears in his clothing inflicted by Sai's efforts, you could glance at his chest, and it wasn't that of a living, red-blooded human. It was too smooth, too pale to be made of flesh and skin.

"Sai-san, how are you fairing against him?" asked Kakashi with a punch at a nearby puppet.

"Even if I hit him, he remains unfazed. And his body is full of weapons."

"You mean…"

"He is not human."

"So the puppeteer is a puppet himself…" murmured Kakashi, observing their opponent closely, fingers blurring in speed as they made the necessary hand signs for a fire jutsu. "Are you sure there is no puppet master controlling him?"

"Positive."

"Alright then."

He breathed fire at the puppet and watched in satisfaction as its entire upper body was engulfed in the flames.

_Is that going to work?_

The fire disappeared instantly, extinguished suddenly as though there was no air to fuel it anymore.

_Apparently not._

With a smirk, the puppet master jumped at him, forearms opening to reveal spikes. They launched at Kakashi, chains deploying behind them to capture him in a steely net.

Sai moved in before his comrade could be caught, and it was one of his ink animals that was caught in the net instead of the last Hatake.

"Thanks!" called out Kakashi, preparing for another jutsu.

The puppet master didn't seem much bothered that this attack had failed. It was rather disturbing how apathetic he remained.

Meanwhile, Jiraiya readied an attack of his own, and his hand punched through the puppet master's chest just as Sai's ink tiger pinned him to the ground with a mighty roar.

As the puppet fell to the ground and stopped moving, the three males breathed a sigh of relief.

"Whew. Think that's it?" said Kakashi, breathing out a sigh of relief.

Jiraiya took out his hand from the puppet's chest and got up with a frown.

"I don't know…This feels too easy. Besides…I think I recognize this guy."

"Yeah, his face is familiar to me too…" trailed off Kakashi pensively.

"He looks like Sasori-san of Sunagakure. He was an amazing puppeteer," murmured Jiraiya.

"Alright, but do you think this could be him?"

"Either it is or it is someone who knows of him and made this puppet with his features," said Sai calmly.

Still, wanting to be sure, Jiraiya gently touched the puppeteer's destroyed chest with the tip of his sandal, retracting it when the puppet's charred clothing came apart under the pressure, revealing a strange circular cavity where its heart should have been.

"What's that supposed to be?" asked Kakashi.

"My heart."

Jiraiya felt a pinch, something slide in his gut like cold realization. He looked down at his middle, from which a blade was protruding. With a hiccup, he fell to the ground, revealing another puppet behind him that was missing an arm and whose chest was bare and thus revealed a cylinder in his chest—the so-called heart.

While the Sannin bled all over his hands, trying to staunch the flow of blood, Kakashi distracted the puppeteer in order to let Sai heal Jiraiya superficially, if only to keep the puppet from finishing the job. Meanwhile, Sai's ink animals protected them with murderous ferocity from the attacks of other puppets.

"How did I not sense him…" groaned the old man, keeping his hands firmly pressed on his abdomen, bent in two, as Sai worked on closing the wound from his back.

"Do not speak, Jiraiya-sama," said the cold youngster. "Was that what they call a rhetorical question?"

Jiraiya refrained from chuckling, the tension making his stomach throb in pain. "Don't make me laugh, kid, it's not good for my health. But yeah, I really wonder…"

"This puppet had been put out of order. Logically, he managed to transfer his heart while we were distracted, and therefore it only gained chakra when it was activated once more. With the amount of broken puppets lying around, it is no wonder we couldn't sense it or see it beforehand."

Jiraiya smiled grimly, doing his best to heal himself—being around both Tsunade and Sakura, he had acquired some of their knowledge in medicine, for which he was at present really thankful. "Maybe so, but that won't help us stay alive. Alright, enough, go help Kakashi-san while I finish this."

Sai didn't object, used to obeying orders and sure now that the older man would survive. He blocked a kunai headed straight at him while an ink tiger caught another one in its jaws, that one directed at Jiraiya's throat, and sent a few kunai of his own at Sasori. Putting his hands together, he whispered "Kai" and the exploding tags attached to the weapons blew up in the puppet's face, blinding it enough for Kakashi to jump at him and stab him in the chest, straight where its heart was—or should have been.

Once more, it appeared that the puppeteer switched places with another of his puppets in the minute instant it took Kakashi to be on him.

The heart piece, having been taken out, was thus safely in another body, out of range. But it didn't mean the three Konoha men were out of Sasori's range.

Forced to deal with a barrage of senbon from a new puppet, Sai and Kakashi jumped apart, one using a fire jutsu to cremate the puppet, the other countering the pointy weapons with kunai.

The puppet fell, dismantled and burned to a crisp—once again its heart was nowhere to be seen.

"We must immobilize it first if we have any hope of winning," pointed out Kakashi.

"Alright," replied Sai.

He drew a few more animals, waiting for the puppet master to reappear from somewhere around them. The felines he sketched prowled around the area, carefully avoiding broken body parts in their search for the one hiding among many.

It turned out that Sasori got the jump on them once more. Motionless, he waited for the animals to pass him by before stealthily disappearing in the sand. No one noticed a puppet was missing.

-:-

In the end, Kakashi and Sai incinerated all of the puppets without any reappearance from Sasori. The two males remained on edge, however, knowing that the man-turned-puppet could still be at large, waiting to ambush them.

Jiraiya remained distant, feeling sluggish at best. His limbs felt heavy and were to slow to respond to any command his brain sent. He was still quite able to fight, but there was a lassitude in his body that he could not ignore. Maybe he was getting too old for this.

"Are you alright, Jiraiya-sama?"

The voice broke the daze he had unconsciously been pulled in, and he blinked, looking up at Kakashi's concerned face—or eye, really, but it didn't matter.

Blink.

"Of course. I'm fine."

Blink. Somehow, Kakashi-'s face—eye, whatever—seemed even more concerned.

"I am. Really."

Blink. Hey, he wasn't even looking at him anymore. How rude.

"Someone, do we have a medic on hand or someone who knows how to deal with poisons?"

Blink. And why the hell would the man put his fingers on his jugular anyway? He brushed them off, but Kakashi frowned and only reapplied them pointedly with a serious glance at him.

"Stop doing that, it's annoying."

Blink.

"I'm checking your pulse, Jiraiya-sama _because_ I don't know what you were poisoned with."

Blink.

"It must have been that time he was stabbed," said Sai, sounding far away.

Blink. Hm…Things were slanting to the side. How strange.

"Whoa!"

Blink. When had those hands appeared to support him on either side of his body? Oh, wasn't the sun nice and all…but it was so cold. Where was the warmth? And the sky was soooo blue…

"Jiraiya-sama! Stay awake! Don't go to sleep!"

Blink.

"But I'm tireeeeeed," he yawned, mouth pasty and disgusting.

A slap gave him back lucidity, but only momentarily—he was sinking, sinking, sinking…Where was up and where was down?

Blink. Blink. Darkness crept at the edge of his vision. Things were becoming grayer, and swirly, too. It was giving him nausea. He didn't want to look. He was going to vomit.

"I'm going to be sick," he muttered just before losing the contents of his stomach onto the ground. Who had turned his body to the side? And since when was he laying on the ground? He was not some invalid!

But nausea reared its head again and sucker punched him in the gut again.

"What the hell…"

He heaved once more, bile staining his lips. Everything felt acid in his mouth, but was it only there? What about the rest of his body?

"Come on, can't anyone do something to help him? We don't even know if the poison's lethal!"

"I'm working on it!"

Oh. Poison, huh? That explained everything…

His lashes came to rest on the top of his cheekbones and didn't move anymore.

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And another one done! I'll do my best to post the next chapter on time, I promise!


	100. Snakey Man and Crazy Girl

Well, this was fun to write, even if it was slow in coming. Sorry about that, by the way. I had a few FML moments this week, and I was very busy, but I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it! By the way, I'd like to thank every reviewer. You guys always make my day. I love hearing from you, and it always motivate me to write faster and better chapters, even when I'm tired and would rather do anything else. A million thanks, guys! Enjoy this 100th chapter!

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Some people are easy to amuse. Others are easy to annoy. Orochimaru was of the latter category. He knew it and everyone knew it, so most people tended to either try to make him happy or got out of his way when he was in a foul mood.

Sasori, however, was one of the few immunized against Orochimaru's general foulness. Part of it was due to his respect for the man; part of it was because he was immortal and didn't care if he lost a limb or two, as they could be easily replaced.

He thus stared rather pragmatically at the Sannin, waiting for the pallid man to stop hissing and glaring at anything in close range—destroying some of them in the process, too.

He only blinked as a vial swished past his head. It exploded against the wall behind him with a crash, a dark purple liquid languidly dripping down the stone wall. He didn't pay it any mind and instead waited patiently for Orochimaru to calm down.

"They'll follow you here, you fool!" hissed the snake man angrily, eyes flashing.

"I am not so easy to follow," replied Sasori lightly.

Orochimaru waved him off. "They have master trackers among them. It's only a matter of time before they get here."

"I doubt they'll get here so quickly," said Sasori. "Right about now, they should be more worried about the Toad Sage's health than anything else, including finding this hideout."

Orochimaru's eyes lit in interest. This piece of news was truly fascinating.

"Oh? Do tell."

Sasori shrugged. "I stabbed him with a poison-covered blade. They could save him if they have good medics, but at least they'll be stalled for a while."

A sickening smile bloomed on Orochimaru's face, stretching his lips upward so far toward his cheekbones that his mouth looked more like a grotesque slit in his face than a pair of lips.

"Good, good…That _is_ good news, though I'd rather be the one to end my old teammate's life…"

For a moment, Orochimaru stopped pacing, thinking quietly to himself.

"We could evacuate…but thinking about it annoys me. Let them come. I'll handle them myself."

_If _they even got close. After all, he had created such a perfect immortal puppet, one that had even managed to capture the Uchiha heir, that the chances of the Konoha teams getting to him unscathed and complete were close to nil.

He was pretty sure they were annihilated right about now, but one always had to be sure.

"What about Kabuto, my puppet?"

"I didn't stay with him, but as I gathered, he was fighting Hidan-san, the Jashinist."

"This could pose to be a problem…He's well-known for being immortal and doesn't care about pain…" murmured the Sannin pensively. "Oh well. This could be interesting but it doesn't matter much. Although he could prove to be a really interesting specimen for my experiments. And speaking of which…I think I'll pay a little visit to my young medic."

With that said, he whipped around and left the immortal puppet to his devices. Sasori shrugged, used to his partner's mood swings and eccentric attitude. He would prepare in case he had to fight again. Now, if his joints could only work properly…Maybe he hadn't chosen the best puppet to transfer to.

-:-

"So, what do we do? We have to either get Jiraiya-sama away from here—back to Konoha—and halve our forces, or we can leave him him, still with half of the teams, and continue on," explained Kakashi with a critical look at the unconscious Sannin. His comrades remained silent for a moment. Indeed, it seemed that no matter what, they would have to leave at least one team behind to care for Jiraiya and treat his poisoning. Leaving him alone, unconscious to boot, in the middle of enemy territory was just asking for trouble.

"If we stay here with him, we could be attacked by Suna's ninja anytime," pointed out Sai calmly.

"Right. Okay, one team goes back with Jiraiya-sama. My team goes ahead."

"You do whatever you want," said Kisame, "but there's an immortal just sitting there in the sand with my sword in his back, and we don't know how to kill him. And I'm not talking about the Jashinist."

"Damn it, you're right. We have to stay here for that," muttered Kakashi with a frown. "But if one team goes back and the other stays to guard the immortal, nobody can go to the snake's lair."

"We can," said Kisame, pointing at the scowling Hidan and himself in turns. "But you don't really need a whole team to guard the immortal zombie. He's immobilized. Two people would be enough."

The message was clear: I don't care what you choose to do, I'm still going.

Kakashi sighed, the message having been carried across clearly, and nodded.

"No other choice, then."

-:-

Itachi's eyes strained, lightly at first, then more and more. There were outlandish sounds coming from far, far away. So far away, in fact, that at first, he thought it was only his imagination. He so longed for a reprieve of the omnipresent silence that he could have imagined anything. But no. not this time. This time it was real. This time it was actually happening. There were people in the compound, enemies Orochimaru was trying to drive out.

The sounds got steadily closer, accompanied by much shouting and grunting and waves of heat, and he knew something was going to happen, something _big_.

A thousand birds chirped loudly in the confined space, reflecting off the stone walls over and over again in an orchestrated cacophony, and something exploded mightily nearby, sending things hitting off the walls with clangs and thuds—not a person, then. The sound would have been more sloppy, he assessed slowly.

"Watch out in there!"

He barely had time to feebly try to lift his arms to his face to shield it—the door exploded with a bang, sending shards of wood everywhere. A few grazed him, one got stuck in his thigh, but aside from those minor injuries, no harm was done. He coughed in the residual dust, wondering who was coming for him. Or were they coming for him at all?

He heard several sharp intakes of breath and a few muttered curses and, somehow managing to lift his head a fraction, directed a tired twitch of the lips in the general direction of the opening that had once been his barricade against Orochimaru's presence.

"Hello," he called out quietly, chest hurting with the exertion it took to maintain his head up. He let it flop back down tiredly.

"That's it. The guy is going down. Stay here with him—get him up to speed and heal him as best as you can. I'm going after Orochimaru. The bastard should be lurking around here somewhere."

-:-

She giggled silently to herself.

"Green, red and yellow are colours of the rainbow."

Something shook her, but it wasn't enough to stop her.

"Purple and blue are in there too," she chanted happily.

She nodded to herself, satisfied. This sounded about right.

A new shake disturbed her, and she was conscious that someone was speaking to her, but only for a moment. She didn't offer any resistance to the shaking, body limp. Her head fell back, a crazy grin stretching her lips as she lost herself in her internal world.

A new, more important shake finally made her focus for a longer moment and she actually listened to the words cried out to her worriedly.

"Chibi! Chibi-sensei! Fucking hell. Chibi-sensei!"

That sounded familiar. Very familiar. Why did that sound familiar? She hummed, thinking that over for a long moment. Where had she heard that before...Oh yeah! That was her! That was what someone liked to call her. But she had absolutely no idea who that person was. Or her, for that matter. Not that it was important.

"Heya," she slurred with a grin and a little wave of her right hand. "'Sup?"

"Fucking. Hell. I'm gonna kill that motherfucker."

"Hey, not bad. Your vocabulary is expanding, heathen."

"Shut up, Jashinist, lest I make you. You're not helping."

She raised a hand in questioning, drawing both males' attention to her.

"What's a Jashinist? Is it something fun?"

Someone puffed up and excitedly began to chatter away about some supreme god and sacrifices and stuff, and she was lost. She wiggled her toes experimentally with a chuckle and poked the nearest person with her big toe. When that didn't elicit a reaction, she tried again.

"I swear, even if she had earned a few points in my book, with this she's just fucking lost them all. Let me at her, fucker, I'll chop off a few of those toes to match her hands!"

There were sounds of scuffling and some grunting that sounded a lot like cursing, but apart from a light breeze near her face, she didn't feel anything different. But it was a nice feeling.

"Haha, again, again!" she called out in infantine delight.

" See? The bitch _wants_ me to! She's fucking _asking_ for it! Since when do you keep a lady waiting, huh?"

"Since when do you listen to her requests anyway? And for that matter, where does that misplaced disgusting chivalry come from?"

Oooh, such an incredulous timbre of voice...How fun. Maybe itwas worth it to listen a bit more.

"I'll have you know I _always_ listen to a lady's request when it involves blood."

The voice sounded so dignified, like a piqued aristocrat, that she couldn't restrain her laughter any longer.

She guffawed loudly, rolling on the ground as much as she could with her manacles, or what remained of them anyway, thought she didn't know whenthey had disappeared. Many mysterious things happened around her. It was magic. Of course.

"You guys are so funny!" She giggled, unable to stop herself even when the males fell silent.

"...Alright, that's it, we're taking her with us. We don't have time to make sure she's alright or what's wrong with her."

"Agreed. Not like that interests me. I'd rather behead a snake today than babysit another pinkette."

A soft, oh so soft voice sounded from farther away, chilly and softly hissing.

"You may get your wish sooner than you thought."

"Ooooh, I know that voice, I know that voice! It's, it's..."

Two voices sounded at the same time, one excited and one flatter than death.

"Orochimaru."

"Eh? I thought he was the Snakey Man..."

"You know, the whole crazy, childish talk is getting old. Can we knock her out or something?"

"Touch her, lose a hand. Touch her again, lose your head. Now shut your trap and start by castrating the snake or I'll do it myself!"

There were more strange sounds coming from the general direction of the Snakey Man, then something wrapped around her middle, something big and warm, and her right leg strained as she was suddenly and rather brutally pulled to the side.

She cried out in pain, her cry immediately making the thing around her tighten some more and a voice ask worriedly, "Shit, are you alright?"

"I think I lost my leg. The lower part. Say, do I still have a leg?"

The pressure on her ankle disappeared with a click, and a soft touch eased the pain gently.

"Don't worry, you've still got a foot, but I'm sorry about the mess. Shouldn't have yanked you to the side so suddenly, but kunai tend to make nasty holes."

"Ooh, right..." She didn't know what a kunai was, but it sounded nasty. Yep. Real nasty. Maybe it was like that grub she got to eat once in a while. That was real bad.

"Hey, fuckers! Get the fuck away or something! You're in the way!"

"I'm trying, idiot!"

Oh, she was moving...The world was moving this way and that, and it was so fun! It was like she was on a rollercoaster!

Ouch.

Her cry made whatever was around her middle shift, and suddenly both her back and legs were well supported, and there was something big and warm against her ear, a thumping that was both strong and familiar.

_Well, this is comforting...so warm and safe…_

She drifted to sleep, thinking of rainbows and sunshine.

"What the flying fuck?!"

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So, how'd you like the golden 100? Was everything clear? I really wanted to write this from Itachi's and Sakura's points of view. Was it interesting?


	101. Sand Trap

Whew! At last, a new chapter! Enjoy, everyone, this shiny 101th!

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"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Had he been the one holding her in his arms, Hidan wouldn't have hesitated to outright shake her awake—or something more violent along these lines. Much more violent.

It seemed, however, that Kisame had no intention to wake up his precious cargo. That didn't mean, however, that he would just hold her and stand aside while Hidan went at the snake. However, leaving Samehada in the zombie's body meant that he didn't have his weapon of choice and thus had to get much closer to the Sannin than he desired, especially in these conditions. Not that this meant he had any intention of putting Sakura down. She was with him, and she was going to stay with him.

Sending a few senbon in direction of Orochimaru's flank, he took a coil of ninja wire out of his weapons pouch and, using the momentary distraction, quickly and efficiently tied Sakura's small form to his back. With her limbs carefully tucked into his side and feeling rather like a turtle, the blue man finally let his aggression go free.

So many things could happen in a fight. The one you were fighting could prove to be stronger than you or surprise you at any moment. The same reasoning could apply to one's allies.

But even that, which was drilled into every ninja at the Academy, didn't manage to keep Hidan from outright staring at Sakura, who had just managed to fall asleep in the middle of a battlefield.

That couldn't possibly be natural. And it sure as hell wasn't a good idea. And apparently, Kisame thought the exact same thing, for he appeared most concerned, though he managed to retain his concentration. And it was in his best interests to do so, as Orochimaru was not a man to underestimate.

-:-

"Get these off of me," murmured Itachi, getting Kakashi's attention instantly. The silver-haired man glanced at the Uchiha he supported with one arm. The young ninja didn't look well. Hell, he had trouble staying upright and standing at all.

"Get them off," repeated the genius firmly. "The stitches," he explained.

Kakashi hesitated a moment, which the younger male didn't fail to notice. "I don't have the right tools to..."

"Get them off."

Kakashi sighed. He couldn't argue against such insistence, but he still had reservations.

"This is really dangerous. If I slip..."

"I won't resent you for it. And my family won't either. Do it."

With a long-suffering sigh, Kakashi gently helped Itachi sit down, back to one of the corridor's walls, and took out a kunai.

"Here goes," he murmured, pressing the sharp blade against the first set of stitches. They yielded rapidly, but each time he felt them give under the tip of his blade, he flinched, staying his trembling hands. If he was surprised and he slipped...

Fortunately, though the sounds of battle reached their ears, it appeared far enough away that they wouldn't be disturbed yet and that it wasn't heading their way. It was a relief, if only a minor one.

Finally, the last stitch fell to the floor and Kakashi, throat dry, croaked that it was done.

Slowly, Itachi's hands lifted to his face and he ran the tip of his fingers over his eyelids ever so cautiously. Feeling nothing but skin and eyelashes, he withdrew his hands and, as they dropped to his lap, gingerly opened his eyes a fraction.

The flickering lights from a nearby torch were enough to make him close them tightly a moment later with a pained hiss. After so a long a sojourn in complete darkness, his eyes needed some time to get used to even the slightest bit of light.

He raised his hand to stop Kakashi from touching him in concern, feeling less than tempted at the thought of physical contact. He almost shied away from the other male, but had too much control to do so. He hadn't shied away when Orochimaru had touched him, so he wasn't about to do it when a comrade was. He just need space, or he was going to strangle himself on the absence of air that was plaguing only him.

"Just...give me a moment." He needed time to regroup himself, to gather his wits about himself.

He closed his eyes firmly, tightly, and took a few deep breaths to steady himself. He mentally thanked Kakashi for not being too inquisitive. He need silence at the moment; Kakashi was intelligent and wise enough to recognize this, having once had the very same need. Years ago, when he had been turned into the last Hatake, all thanks to his father...

The light-haired man shook his head, unwilling, especially now, to reminisce about that. He looked Itachi over. Already, the young ninja was trying to open his eyes again very carefully. This time, he appeared to be more successful.

With a small nod, he struggled to get up and blinked several times. He covered his face with one hand and, palm flat against the wall, pushed himself away from his support. As he ran his hand down his face, he fortified himself with another deep breath through his nose.

"I'm fine."

"What about your eyes?"

"They're alright."

"Alright, then let's go."

Of course, the logical thing to do would have been to head away from the nearby fight. Meaning, that is what a civilian would have done. But they weren't civilians, and in that direction was undoubtedly the girl Itachi loved.

Their progress was slow, as Itachi was too weak to walk unassisted, but it was better than standing around doing nothing.

On their way, they passed by a heap of mangled body parts that could have been made from wood or some other hard material. Itachi looked at the broken limbs curiously, to which Kakashi only said, "Akasuna no Sasori."

With a light chuckle, Itachi's second support spoke up too. "He was a bitch to take out, but he wasn't at 100%, and that guy's Chidori can blow a mean hole in one's chest, let me tell ya."

"Shiranui, shut up."

Genma shrugged. "Just telling things as they are."

"Fine, but now's not the moment."

Indeed, the telltale sounds of battle were getting closer and closer.

Around a corner, they finally got to see what the mess was all about. It appeared that Hidan and Kisame, who had attached Sakura to his back like a baby koala, were relentlessly attacking something that was white and big.

"What the hell's that?" whispered Genma, all three of them coming to a stop in the middle of the corridor. "That can't be Orochimaru...Can it?"

"Maybe he experimented on himself, too...But what a disgusting appearance..."

Indeed, Orochimaru looked nothing like his usual self. More to the fact, he didn't look human anymore. His body was serpentine, huge and white, and made of smaller snakes. Mutations, experimentation, jutsu? It was too disgusting to think about.

Still, they had to do something. Kisame was hindered, as he was clearly trying to keep Sakura from getting injured. And Hidan, though immortal, was in a bad spot too because his weapon of choice, his three-bladed scythe, was a long-range weapon, though he also used it in close-range combat. However, in such a narrow space, that didn't help him much.

"You two, go help them. I'll be fine here," said Itachi, gaining both Kakashi's and Genma's attention instantly.

"Not a good idea," said Genma slowly, eyes back on the battle ahead.

"He's right. We can't leave you in that state," added Kakashi.

"Hai, you can. And you will, because that girl over there is the girl I love. I can take care of myself. Go."

There was fervor in his voice, and determination in the set of his jaw. He was not going to back down on this matter.

The two men jumped into the fray, giving Kisame a reprieve he quite needed. Hidan, on his part, was annoyed at the disturbance. More people meant less space and opportunities to kill Orochimaru. And he didn't want to have his prey taken away from him. That wasn't going to happen.

"Get away, fuckers!" he yells in annoyance. Of course, neither Kakashi nor Genma listens to him, so he flips them off grouchily. He's not a team kind of man. If they get nicked or impaled by his scythe, fuck 'em.

He jumped aside as much as he can, sticking to the wall like a crouching and hissing cat, as a column of flames brushed past him. Exactly where he had been standing before, in fact.

He cursed loudly at Kakashi while Genma restrained from laughing.

"Fucking hell, heathen, watch what you're doing!"

Kakashi shrugged. "My bad. I was sure you'd jump aside."

"'Course I was, but do it again and I'll push my scythe so far up your ass you'll taste metal!"

Orochimaru, who remained unfazed by the casual banter and had managed to get out of the way of the flames, jumped at them, head elongated, and it was by mere reflexes that they avoided him.

"What a fucking freak," muttered Hidan, swiping at the head as it passed by him. It managed to nick the neck, but no more. However, the immortal was satisfied. A drop of blood was enough for him to do his prized technique. And now, he could let Kakashi and Genma distract Orochimaru long enough for him to draw his god's symbol on the ground, which would have been impossible with Kisame alone in this close-up space.

"Let the blood rain," he murmured with a sadistic smile.

-:-

Despite the disturbing cackles coming from Hidan, Kakashi and Genma managed to stay concentrated on the matter at hand. They attacked the monster relentlessly, forcing him to step back more and more. But Orochimaru was not the type of man who liked or even accepted to have to step back.

With a cavernous roar, he let his body stretch rapidly. It pressed against the walls; soon, ominous creaks resounded in the entrails of the underground compound, and fissures appeared along the ceiling. But still the snake man's body distended, unfazed and undisturbed by the kunai piercing it from top to bottom. It grew to gargantuan proportions, and in no time, the walls caved in under the pressure.

Gravel, large blocks of stone and sand engulfed the confined space, drowning them in clouds of airborne dust and dirt.

Sputtering, the ninja jumped aside to avoid the falling blocks of stone. Cursing, Kisame unhooked Sakura from his back in one swift movement and grabbed Itachi with his free hand. Crushing the two to his chest, he hung his head to avoid getting sand in his eyes and mouth and protected both injured ninja with his wide back. He wished he could have Sakura's insane strength to punch his way out of the self-destructing underground facility.

"Hang on to me," he told Itachi. "Don't let go. You'll manage that?"

"Hai," answered the Uchiha firmly, voice barely heard over the assounding noise.

By now, neither one of them could see Kakashi, Genma, Hidan or Orochimaru.

It was not the time to worry about others. They could only trust they'd be able to get out alive.

Kisame quickly tied Sakura to his stomach and made sure Itachi was hanging on to him properly, then tied a piece of cloth to his face and propelled himself upward.

He clawed his way out, wincing as rocks grazed him but unwilling to stop. He had to get out of there as soon as possible.

He jumped from boulder to boulder, getting steadily closer to the surface. He was getting out, his fingers were grasping the last boulder that separated them from the open air when his foot slipped, and his mouth opened in a silent sceam as he tumbled back into the sand coffin.

But said fall didn't happen by mere chance; the coil of wire at his ankle attested to that.

-:-

Kakashi and Genma managed to get out within moments of each other, hacking and spluttering. Under the stars, no moon shone, but Orochimaru's gargantuan white form reflected the pale light available just enough so that they could see it.

"Hey, where're the others?" murmured Genma.

In answer to that, seemingly, Hidan erupted from the ground, unhappily cursing.

But no one else was forthcoming.

"This is seriously bad," whistled the senbon-sucking man.

Indeed, if the ones they had come to rescue were swallowed up by the ground, to die from lack of air or pressure from the weight of the sand and stone, whichever one came first.

"They'll get out. They have to. We can't afford to get back in there."

As a matter of fact, the two men had to separate to avoid a blow from the Sannin they were fighting to the death.

And still no one appeared from the remains of the compound. No one noticed a hand grappling for support on an outcrop before disappearing, sucked into the ocean of sand.

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Everyone satisfied? This proved incredibly hard to write, considering I had to take a break due to my health. I don't like it when I'm too tired to even think, but at least I'm faithful, right? Besides, after 100 chapters, I think I deserve a little vacation. I'm rather satisfied with the results in this chapter. I hope you all are, too!


	102. Sand River

Hi everyone! Last week, I was still pretty much out of it, so I preferred to work on a mostly-finished new story instead of posting something with sub-standard quality. I hope this one makes up for it. And I hope you won't hate me too much at the end.

I'll leave you to it, then! Enjoy, enjoy!

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He fell on his back brutally, breath whooshing out of him in a pained grunt. Sand and debris rained down on him for a moment before settling, trapping him in a small alcove of relative peace meters under the surface of the desert.

"What was that?" asked Itachi, shaking his head in dizziness.

"I don't know; something just grabbed my ankle and pulled me back down," replied the shark man, rubbing the back of his head. The dull throbbing didn't appease.

As if on cue, a barrage of senbon whistled through the air. Cursing, Kisame tried, rather unsuccessfully, to jump aside to escape being skewered by the needle-like weapons. But there was nowhere to jump to, and he still had Itachi and the unconscious Sakura to protect. He raised a hand to protect his midsection and quickly whipped out a kunai with his other. Most of the senbon he managed to deflect, but a row of them landed on his left forearm. With a grunt, he took them out. Already, he could feel the poison working its way under his kin, slowly spreading through his veins to every cell of his body.

"Sasori." His voice was flat at the realization.

"One doesn't _leave_ the Akatsuki, Kisame-san," replied a voice nearby, somewhere in the darkness. "Surely you didn't expect to be left alone."

"Heh. I didn't. Now what?"

"Now you will die. You see, I don't have to actually do anything. My senbon were coated in paralyzing poison, so in a few minutes, I will be able to pluck the kids from you without you being able to do a single thing, and you will die of suffocation soon after."

A growl rumbled in Kisame's chest as ire boiled in his veins. So this was what it was going to be like, huh? Like he was going to go down that easily.

"You pathetic coward," he snarled. "You don't even dare to face me properly."

Only silence answered him. And then, Itachi spoke up.

"There's not enough air for us to last long enough for the poison to paralyze Kisame-san anyway," he pointed out. "Your plan is flawed."

"Well then, I'll just have to kill him faster."

Once again, senbon whistled through the air, and despite Kisame's best efforts, he didn't remain unscathed. Many of them penetrated his torso, burying into his internal organs—lungs, liver, stomach, it was all game. With a grunt, he fell to one knee, cradling his abdomen. Through clenched teeth, he tasted blood, and furrowed his brows even more. This was obviously going to end badly for him.

The worse thing was that neither he nor Itachi could use their usual jutsu against the hidden puppet master. Obviously, if he used a water jutsu, the sand would turn to mud and trap them all—death by asphyxiation. If Itachi used a fire jutsu, it would alight the sand, turn it into glass and burn all of their precious oxygen—death by asphyxiation.

_Great._

-:-

"Hoshigaki-san, Uchiha-san and Sakura-sensei are still buried underground," said Sai calmly, drawing animal after animal in hopes to keep Orochimaru distracted. "What are we to do?"

"We don't have a choice. They will have to fend for themselves," replied Kakashi.

"You fucking pussies, if you want to talk, do it elsewhere!" yelled Hidan, who didn't care either way about the three.

His scythe swished through the air, striking the enormous white body of the psychotic Sannin. It made a dent, but Orochimaru seemed, aside from an inhuman screech, rather unfazed. Hidan pulled on the chain linking him to his weapon, managing another cut on the serpentine body. Once again, Orochimaru remained unperturbed, as if none of it mattered to him.

Instead, he snarled loudly, baring impressive fangs at them all. Poison dripped from them, landing on the ground with tiny splashes and hisses as it corroded the surrounding area, tendrils of greenish smoke rising from the darkening spot.

Above head, a lone bat flew around in circles, searching for an elusive pink-haired child. But none was to be found above ground…

-:-

Flying this way and that, the little bat tried to determine Sakura's exact position. No sign of her present above ground, Chiyoko wondered if maybe the girl had not managed to get out.

With a frown, she opened her fanged mouth and emitted a sound no human ears could perceive. At attention, she carefully listened to the rebound of the ultrasounds. Was there anything to be found underground, beneath that surface that glistened and moved in tandem with the movements of the humans?

Again and again, she repeated the same call, hoping to find a clue, anything to give her reason to rejoice.

Just as she managed to find something, one of Orochimaru's eight serpent heads landed eyes on her.

_Uh oh_, was all she could think before a ray of flames engulfed her whole.

-:-

Kisame struggled to keep his eyes open. He knew the poison was working its way through his body, slowly shutting down his peripheral members first, then working its way up to his internal organs.

He had been contemplating an escape plan that would hopefully let them leave with minimal damage when something attracted his attention. And instantly, he knew that Itachi, too, had felt it. After all, they had been training months in a certain underground city and had long since learned to recognize the ultrasounds the bats used to communicate.

"Hey, Itachi-san…How strong do you feel?" he asked painstakingly through a pasty mouth.

"Strong enough," replied Itachi firmly, having, too, recognized the signal. It didn't take him long to decipher the message, which left him feeling slightly more at ease.

"Alright, then prepare yourself."

Muscles tensing, he brought his hands together, hidden by Itachi who had conveniently placed himself in front of him.

"I'll leave chibi-sensei to you," he whispered with a small smirk, and knew even Sasori's best efforts would not save him this time.

Water rushed into the darkness, turning everything to sludge, and it began to agglutinate around their feet, crept up their legs, immobilized them at their calves. From the obscurity, a dangerous howl, much like that of a wounded beast, resounded lugubriously.

-:-

Sai dunked out of the way of a particularly vicious head. The ink eagle he had been sitting on wavered dangerously but managed to regain stability and sped away. On the ground, Kakashi and Genma each battle a single head while Hidan distracted the other ones. It turned out the annoying immortal was pretty good at it.

And then, suddenly, the ground moved.

"What the hell is that?!" yelled Genma, losing his footing and noting at once that the enormous snake seemed unsettled, too, rolling on top of the moving ground.

Still, that did not incapacitate the Sannin. Each head twisted, yelling hoarsely a cry that would have shattered glass, had any been around. And then their maws opened, and swords erupted from them in deadly shrapnel manner.

"Kusanagi!" yelled Kakashi, anguished. His sharingan shone brightly into the night, reflecting the light of the flames the eight serpent heads spewed next. Somewhere above their heads, a screech was heard, and a ball of flames dropped to the ground. It twisted, hissed and screeched, and was heard no more, reduced to a crumpled, charred mess.

Meanwhile, the ground moved and twisted, as though animated of life and reason, with the grumble of an angry and hungry beast.

-:-

Itachi closed his eyes against the torrent of water-carried sand and debris. If he tried to look around, his eyes would be badly damaged—possibly irreversibly if left untreated. Remembering the bats' training, he tried to expand his other senses, starting with his ears. If he could manage to somehow navigate into this sea of sand, he could save them.

Grabbing Sakura, he hoisted himself up, mindful of both of their injuries. Something tried to restrain him, and he instinctively opened his eyes, but already the pressure was waning. Before sand engulfed his head, he glimpsed Kisame driving a kunai in Sasori's admittedly roughed up heart cylinder. The tall man, with a tired smile, closed his eyes and let the agonizing puppet go, both of them letting themselves go in the current.

Determination swelling inside him, Itachi desperately swam, knowing that the river of sand could well be formed under the surface of the desert and that he thus couldn't count on it carrying them both to the open air.

With a wince, he strained against his tired muscles, unwilling to let them give up on him. Not now that he was so very, very close to being free.

_Let me taste the air once more!_

-:-

Somewhere far, far away from the battle scene, a mighty being read a report in a great hall full of bustling creatures. Feeling less than fully concentrated, however, the gigantic beast sighed. Something was definitely wrong. That much was certain.

There was a fluttering , an anguished heartbeat, and suddenly, the doors to the hall, massive though they were, snapped open, revealing a stressed-out bat of the darkest black.

"Machi-sama!" panted the desperate bat. "Something terrible has happened!"

"What is it?" asked the venerable leader of the bats. "Speak thy mind clearly."

"As suspected, the human, Sakura-sensei, she was in trouble! As ordered, I, along with a small contingent of trusted spies, have wandered the human realm in search for her. We have found that after summoning her two swains, she returned to her medical village. However, it seems that trouble had been brewing during her absence. The Uchiha heir, Itachi-san, was kidnapped. It seems that to save him, our Sakura-sensei has decided to act as bait for the Snake Sannin, the one they call Orochimaru-san!"

Frowning, Machi settled more comfortably behind her desk and leaned forward in intrigued interest. "Continue, flesh of mine flesh," she ordered calmly. "What hath then happened to thus unsettle thee?"

"It seems her plan worked too well, oh Machi-sama! She was taken prisoner, and none have seen her since! The snake's lair we cannot intrude upon, lest he find us!"

Machi nodded sharply. Indeed, they had been gone for far too long, when they were supposed to be only a few days—weeks at most. This news unsettled her greatly, for she was one used to reading between the lines, and could see where this was going.

"Thou were wise to come to me, oh descendent of mine. This is indeed unsettling. Have thee taken any precautions and acted preventively in this matter you speak of?"

"Two of my brothers were left behind to check on the state of things. If the situation deteriorates any further, one of them will come to you," replied the smaller bat.

"Good, good indeed," said the mother of all bats. "We will have to move soon if Sasura-sensei is incapacitated. This is…"

Suddenly, she froze, as though seeing things far away, things that no one else could see or sense even remotely. Posture rigid, her brows furrowed in anger, ire radiating from her whole demeanor when she said deceptively calmly, "Sons and daughters, our beloved Chiyoko-chan hath departed from this plane of existence and our ally, Sakura-sensei, is in mortal peril, unable to summon us. With her last breath, Chiyoko-chan hath managed to convey a message to me, mother of all. I now know their location. Her death will be avenged. It is against the laws of summons to move out without a summoning, but I shall take full responsibility. Chiyoko-chan's death will not be in vain! We _will_ avenge our brethren!"

The war cry reverberated along the walls of the great hall, down the palace and into the underground city, soon taken up by more and more bats, until the whole mountain trembled and resonated with the yells of the incensed bats.

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And so the bats are going to war. Oh, isn't this simply wonderful? ^^


	103. Death

Hey, everyone! I'm not dead or lying in a ditch! Thanks for the reviews and the support, it really kept me going these past few weeks (has it really been 3 weeks already?!). I love you all, and I swear you won't have to wait as long for the next chapter. Many things will be resolved then. So yeah, enjoy, ne?

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Something was suffocating her. It smelled nice, it felt comfortable, but it was suffocating her. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe!

She flailed around, trying to rid herself of this thing that was surrounding her, holding her close and keeping her from breathing, and there was something oppressing her, all around her, something that rolled on her skin and hurt…

The thing wrapped around her tightened—not to the point of crushing, but more than enough to reaffirm the hold—and she tried to get away once more.

And then, miracle! The pressure lessened and disappeared, and even the thing restraining her arms loosened and she was free!

She stumbled on jelly legs, shivering. What was this cold?

-:-

Itachi let Sakura go as soon as he reached the surface, too tired to do anything else as he regained his breath. Unexpectedly, she had awoken during his flight to the surface, and she had panicked, not knowing what was going on. He could not talk to her, and so had only hugged her tighter against him as she fought him. He panted, gulping as much of the cold night air of the desert as he could, and watched tiredly as she took a few steps on shaking legs.

In the background, the sky was illuminated from time to time by the occasional burst of a jutsu. They were not far from the battle.

He looked at the clearly lost girl, worried. He would go over there, but…was it safe, in both of their conditions? Especially hers?

"Cold, cold, cold…Is it wind or snow I feel?" she chanted softly, shivering, her tattered clothes offering next to no warmth.

"Sensei…" he murmured, approaching her slowly.

"Cold, cold, cold, I'm so cold, I'm so cold," she continued to chant, paying no heed to his presence.

_She does not recognize me_, he realized in anguish, anger at Orochimaru growing in him steadily.

"Your heart bleeds true, but it is cold as ice," she said softly.

"Sensei?" he asked, surprised, but already, she was turning away, as though she had never spoken at all. He could almost believe he was imagining things. Almost. But not quite.

"Warmth, warmth, warmth…Where can you be found…"

Suddenly, he got his hands full of a certain pink-haired medic. Who, by the look of it, was pretty much content to stay in his arms. He felt himself blushing.

Still, that didn't keep him from being acutely aware that Sakura was all but well. With a sigh, he gently pried her from him and grabbed her forearm, avoiding looking at her mutilated hands. He didn't think he could bear it and still remain sane at the moment.

"Sorry, sensei," he apologized at her distraught look.

Before she could react, he pushed chakra into her arm. Even if Kisame had not dared or wanted to send her there before getting a proper look at her—he could understand the possessiveness—the situation more than warranted it. Hopefully, the people in her medical village would find her soon after she appeared in the cave beneath her home. However, things didn't quite go the way he wanted them to. Sakura didn't disappear. In fact, she looked rather confused at it all. With a frown, he looked at her forearm, and rotated her arm slightly so he could get a better look at it.

As his fingers released her, he saw black spots all along her forearm—exactly where her tattoo should have been. Opening his hand, he looked at it, where some of the substance had stained. Looking at her checkered arm, he clenched his hands, retreating, hands up, as she hissed in pain. What the hell was wrong with Orochimaru that he would scoop squares of flesh out of her arm just to render her tattoo useless?! If only he had simply made slashes across her arm…but this, this surgical precision in each of the incisions to remove layers of skin…His blood boiled in his veins.

-:-

"We've got a bat coming in with massive injuries, people! Let's hop to it! Now, now, now!"

Chisin's hospital bustled with activity as bats of all sizes rushed around, alarm blaring through the corridors. One of their brethren was coming in heavily injured. Everyone was on alert, ready to heal whoever it was to the best of their capacities. And apparently, that particular bat was in a particularly bad shape, as the alarm was blaring louder and louder.

"Why the hell won't they allow themselves to return?!" asked the Head Doctor around.

Once a summon was sufficiently injured, it was normal that they would return to their realm, unless something was keeping them in the human's realm or they decided to stay there anyway.

Within minutes, however, everyone got to breathe a sigh of relief as something black and burnt to a crisp appeared in their midst. With a cry, the nearest bats rushed to the agonizing Chiyoko; it was too late already. Within moments, her lungs collapsed, and she stopped breathing before they could even rush her to the infirmary.

With bleak faces, everyone remained silent in their grief. Chiyoko, a much appreciated member of their city, was no more. At the same moment, further away, their leader yelled in grief and anger, and declared war upon the human, Orochimaru.

-:-

It seemed like no time at all passed between the moment the cremating bat fell to the ground and the moment an intense pressure appeared in the sky. Suddenly, the sky was black, even the moon was hidden, and he looked up reflexively to find out what was going on. Had Orochimaru used a jutsu to block out all light?

Then he heard the flapping sounds, so many they turned into a permanent buzz, and his throat constricted around a sudden lack of air. The killing intent in the area was literally suffocating, keeping him from moving and thinking straight—where was his ninja training?

He managed to shake it off, and then a great voice boomed, "I, Machi-sama, declare thee to be dead this day, oh human named Orochimaru!"

Several of the snake's heads lifted and merely spat flames into the air. For a moment, they illuminated the sky, and he got to see a multitude of bats flying around high up, around a gigantic one that completely obscured the moon.

"That is one big-ass bat," whistled Genma.

_You think?_

In fact, even if the bat had pretty much announced Orochimaru's demise, he couldn't be certain that it wouldn't spell theirs either. And indeed, as something washed over him, he found himself completely paralyzed. His heart thumped in his chest, louder and louder, as his mind scrambled to get out of this situation. He was not going to be a sitting duck!

Just as his limbs regained some of their mobility, another wave of that strange silent paralyzing jutsu washed over him, and he cursed, now sweating badly as he realized he was not getting out of this one that easily. He wished his eyes could move, so he could see the others. Were they as stuck as he was? And what about Orochimaru?

With a tug, he was lifted high into the air, and suddenly, a voice said to him, "Do not struggle, ninja-san. Our quarrel is not with you."

Still unable to properly move or talk, he didn't reply. Further ahead, he saw that others were being carried off like him.

"Humans don't like to be so high in the air, but Machi-sama is really, really, really angry right now, so it's better for you to be up here rather than down there when she makes everything blow up."

_Blow up?_

Apparently, he must have made some kind of sign that alerted the bat carrying him, for it said, "Don't worry about it. By the way, your senses should come back to you soon enough. Your nerves were paralyzed, sure, but it was a mild dose to begin with."

Was there anything mild about that? He wondered. Maybe it was a matter of perspective. Maybe.

Orochimaru didn't stay down for the count, and heavy balls of flames soon illuminated the bat-infested sky. High enough, the bats were given enough time to dodge them, though he, for one, didn't appreciate being carted around so high-handedly. And apparently, neither did Hidan, if his curses were any indication.

The Jashinist didn't take well to the skies, apparently, and certainly not to being passed around like a ragdoll.

"Put me down, you infernal beasts!" yelled Hidan, brandishing his scythe menacingly.

"Please calm down, Jashinist, lest we mistakenly drop you and you crash to the ground," replied calmly one of the bats supporting him.

"I don't fucking care! I'm a fucking immortal! I don't give a shit, you hear me?!"

With a shrug, the bats eventually dropped him, and Kakashi cringed as he yelled some kind of war cry on his way down. And then he winced as a gaping mouth swallowed him whole.

So it was going to be death by stomacal enzymes for him. Yuck.

Strangely, though at first Orochimaru didn't seem disturbed by his meal, he soon frowned, and something bulged in his throat, moving steadily upward.

"Is he...climbing?!" he whispered, unbelieving. Of course, trust the Jashinist not to go down that easily. Squinting hard, he could almost see something making indents on the neck of the snake. The scythe, maybe?

"I can't believe this. This is...okay, let me go now."

"That would be a bad idea. Machi-sama is already in the middle of a dangerous attack. Your comrade might not even survive."

At that, Kakashi looked up. To his right, the immense bat seemed to be glowing. Her mouth opened, and this time, even he could hear something. The sound started slowly, gradually increasing in pitch, but as much as he would like to, he was absolutely unable to compare it to anything he had ever heard.

It didn't affect him, but within seconds, he heard a screech coming from the monstrosity on the ground. His eyes snapped to the twisting body below them, but he could not understand what was happening.

"What is that?" he asked uncertainly.

"The first thing Machi-sama did was immobilize the target to be able to tackle him with the more dangerous jutsu, the second was to immobilize the target's cells, and now she is making them vibrate much faster than they normally would. The effect...think of cold glass that is suddenly thrown into a fire."

Kakashi gulped. That didn't sound good.

"What about the Jashinist?"

"As things are, maybe he will not be goo affected. He is, affer all, protected by the body that surrounds him and he was not immobilized in the first place."

"And he's immortal."

"That, too," agreed the bat with a little chuckle.

"Hey, is that thing gonna last long? And what about Orochimaru's paralyzis?"

"Not to worry. All of us are continuing the paralyzing jutsu. It works to a lesser degree, but he'll be unable to get out of the way for a good while still. It was our luck that he happened to be on a surface where he could not hide. "

"Alright, let me go. I'll end this."

Maybe it was due to his firm tone, maybe it was due to the chirping sound that erupted from his hands, but he didn't have to argue with the bat. As he plummeted to the floor, a thousand birds chirped loudly in the night air, overcoming the flapping sounds of the bats. Frowning, the silver-haired man concentrated on the spot he would hit, crush, worm his way through. A primal cry grew in his throat, and the yell resounded in the hearts of all those who heard it, rattling their bones and their souls. This was it.

"CHIDORI!"

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Whew. This took me a long time to write. I actually wrote much of the first part in two days, but then I got so tired I had barely enough energy to think about this story with everything that was going on in my life. Finally, today, I sat down seriously and said to myself that this was it. I could not make you guys wait even longer for a chapter that I had all figured out anyway. Was it worth it?


	104. I'm Coming Home

Hi, everyone! Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy this, I really like the way action, slight romance and humor are mixed in. It corresponds quite well to the general tone of this story, me thinks.

As for the name of this chapter, it comes from a song I've listened to numerous times while writing this: I'm Coming Home. Check it out!

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Despite knowing that it would be safer for both Sakura and himself to stay away from the battle scene, Itachi knew that he really didn't have much choice. If Orochimaru emerged the victor, he would come after them both, no doubt about that. He might as well lend a hand to ensure that the serpent would die, once and for all.

But then came a question that didn't exactly lower his stress level.

"If I go, what about sensei? I can't very well leave her behind...but to bring her with me isn't much better..."

What a conundrum. He was in trouble. Deep, deep trouble.

The very girl he was thinking about stirred in his arms, shivering. She looked utterly lost.

"Sensei," he murmured, brushing a lock of pink hair from her forehead, "though you may not understand at this time...when you think back on this in the future, please believe that what I do, I do for you."

He pressed his lips to her forehead and darted forward, flashes of colored lightning reflecting in his red eyes from time to time. 

-:- 

Flesh and bones alike gave in under his hands as he wormed his way through the gigantic body. Blood sprayed across his face, entered his mouth and nostrils, but eventually, he emerged in the night air once more, alive if feeling a bit dizzy and ill. He suspected that was due to the bats' jutsu.

Looking back, he jumped aside, out of the way of a jet of flames. Orochimaru was panting, blood spewing from his mouth in frothy spatters, but he was not down for the count. With a heave, the monster snarled, baring fangs of impressive proportions. Apparently, the bats had decided to stop their jutsu, as it would have affected Kakashi too.

With a slight widening of his lone eye, he watched the hole he had blown through the oversized body, starting from one of the necks down to its abdomen. And what was moving up there, suspended at the edge of the hole he had blasted through that neck? Something that looked very much like two legs scrambling for purchase...

-:- 

Hidan cursed loudly. He had been slowly scaling the inside of the snake's throat when something had blasted through the neck, sending vibrations up and down the large column that had dislodged him easily. Fortunately, his scythe had been in his hands, and he had managed to give a blow that had stuck the blades in the soft tissue of the throat. And now he was suspended from the scythe, grip slipping around the blood-coated wood, because yes, he was now covered from head to toe in snake blood and it was disgusting, and there was absolutely nothing beneath his feet. Oh joy.

"Who the fuck did that!" he bellowed furiously.

More than slightly pissed off, he decided to simply cut off what remained of the neck and then find the perpetrator of that less-than-amusing mess and put his foot up his ass. That would be quite rewarding.

He swiftly yanked on his scythe and, as he let gravity take hold of him, cleanly swiped through the neck, landing on the remaining stump while the detached head fell to the ground with a thud.

"Ha!" he exclaimed victoriously, posing with his scythe. "This is what you get for messing around with me!"

A ray of flames burned the ends of his hair; if he hadn't ducked...

"You sacrilegious bastard!" Oh yes, he was inflamed all right. 

-:- 

While Kakashi and Hidan, to a much, much greater degree, hacked away at Orochimaru's gigantic body, Itachi ran toward the battleground, carring Sakura on his back. The pink-haired medic whooped in joy as wind blew her hair away from her face, despite him trying to shush her. He did not know what they would find beyond the dunes, didn't know if they were winning or losing. Didn't really want to consider the latter...

Craters dotted the desert like an adolescent's skin, forming ridges and mountains that exploded upwards, and in the very center stood an abomination the likes of which he had never seen before.

"A hydra?" he whispered, before realizing that it was, quite simply, a giant snake with multiple heads, at least one of which he could see was decapitated and lying on the sand in a pool of blackish blood. Disgusting.

"No way...Orochimaru?"

"Are we stopping yet?" asked Sakura, sounding down.

"Hai," he replied slowly. "I think we are."

Above their heads, something fluttered loudly. He looked up, sharingan coming to life in his eyes. Were those birds? Here, in the middle of the desert? No, wait.

"Bats..."

His whisper trailed off, carried away by the wind. On his back, Sakura stirred, though he didn't know if she was really conscious of anything at this point. It was very dubious, as it seemed she was sinking into a depression because her adrenaline rush was fading, now that he had stopped running.

One of the bats seemed to detach itself from the mass of moving blackness and headed in their direction, growing steadily closer until at last he saw that there was something suspended from the big bat. Something that looked suspiciously like a human.

"Hey guys!"

Oh. So it was Genma.

The senbon-sucking man landed in front of them with nary a cough at the cloud of sand that erupted from his landing.

"Wow, I'm so glad you guys are alright. No injuries?"

"Nothing much, we'll talk about this later," replied Itachi with a pointed look that, fortunately, Genma understood.

"Hey, where's the blue man?" asked Genma, looking over Itachi's shoulder in hopes of seeing the towering man.

"He killed Sasori-san, but...we don't know what became of him," answered the genius truthfully.

"Shit, that's bad. And sensei?" asked Genma, concerned.

"For the moment...she is not exactly well," said Itachi tactfully.

"Oh...We had best get away as soon as possible."

"But Orochimaru..."

"Kakashi-san and the immortal can handle it. The principal is to get you two away from here."

"We can't, Shiranui-san. Not yet. Give me a moment and I will end this."

Itachi sounded so firm in his resolution that Genma, for a moment, stayed silent, even when Sakura was placed carefully in his arms.

"Not to be a spoilsport, but that just might not be the best idea. I don't know how much chakra you have, but..."

"Do not worry so much. I have enough for what I plan to do."

With a frown, the Uchiha heir ran down the length of the dune they were standing on, even as the bat that had carried Genma muttered about youthful foolishness. 

-:- 

"Get out of the way!"

At the yell, Kakashi promptly jumped away, leaving Hidan to continue hacking at Orochimaru by himself. A gigantic head followed his retreat, only to be stopped short by a jet of dark flames that engulfed it whole and soon started to spread to its neck. With an earsplitting shriek, the head twisted atop its neck in a horrifying parody of a dance.

Bewildered, Kakashi turned away from the sight. From the corner of his eye, he saw Hidan stall in his movements as well.

Not far from them, running in their direction, was someone he had not expected to see quite so soon or in this manner.

"Itachi-san!"

With a deep frown, the Uchiha murmured words that he was too far to hear. He did, however, recognize the jutsu as purplish black flames engulfed another of the snake's heads.

This time, it seemed Itachi had put more chakra behind it, or maybe simply more ire, as the flames were both bigger and hotter and more easily spread to the rest of the body.

While Orochimaru attempted, to no avail, to put out the flames or sever his members to keep the fire from overtaking the rest of his body, Hidan snarled, rather furious that his quarry had been taken away from him, even though he was starting to tire and he sported many injuries. He tended to be careless when fighting, which, against an opponent such as Orochimaru, was not quite a good thing.

At least he had done much of the work, even though Kakashi, he had to admit grudgingly, had done a good part too, what with blowing a hole in the monstrosity's stomach. Much weakened thanks to that, Orochimaru had put much less of a fight then.

Still, a snake had fangs...Better not underestimate him.

Kakashi and Hidan had enough experience of battles to know that a dying enemy was a dangerous enemy. As such, as they ran away, both using jutsu of high destroying capacity to keep Orochimaru from following them.

Heads flew at them, mouths wide open; screeches and yells of fury rang through their ears. But already, the flames were finishing what Kakashi had started.

"I curse you all!"

They didn't stop to look back at the incinerating man-turned-monster.

The bats took up their jutsu once again. Orochimaru was unable to avoid it, losing his blood by buckets.

Something exploded behind them, something that made a squelching wet sound as it flopped down in spatters all across the area.

Hidan screeched in disgust as some landed on his head and slowly fell down the length of his back. It was slightly wet and warm, and it was absolutely disgusting. Not to mention it absolutely ruined his perfectly fine hair. 

-:-

As they joined Itachi, Kakashi and Hidan, despite the dense cover of bats that had meanwhile stopped their jutsu and were starting to disappear one after the other, Kakashi noted that the irate genius, whose face was no more expressive than a mask at the moment, was crying tears of blood. Slowly, though his movements belied a deep anger, he wiped them away with the back of his hand.

"Come on," he said, "no sense in dwelling on the past. Let's go home."

They were all covered in blood and pieces of skin and entrails. And they were so tired they felt like sleeping for a week. Or a month. No one felt like arguing.

For a moment, Kakashi thought to ask where Kisame was. He looked at Itachi, saw the hard set of his jaw and the harsh glint in his eyes, and closed his mouth without a word. Apparently, some things were better off unasked.  
Not that Sakura even knew who Kisame was, anymore. Or them, for that matter. Or even herself.

Who knew what the world looked like to her? 

-:- 

Omake 

Several miles away, a body washed up at the end of a confluent of the sand river. Immobile, it rested on the clear expanse of sand for a long, long while.

Eventually, after a fraction of an eternity, a slight twitch of a finger started a movement that soon spread to the rest of the body.

After a while, the body coughed weakly and, with difficulty, crawled out of the sand, liberating its still unresponsive legs from the last of the sand river. That alone took several long minutes of agonizing pain suffered through clenched teeth. Finally, the injured man rolled on his back tiredly and, eyes half open, stared at the silent stars with an extenuated frown. He was lucky to be alive, if barely and in bad shape. Then again, maybe luck wasn't all there was to it. If the circumstances had been any different...

He sighed, feeling something pull in his chest painfully.

"Fucking Sasori."

He threw a blue arm across his face, hiding his eyes tiredly. Maybe he could sleep his life away here…or for a while, at least. After all, there was somebody waiting for him.

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I hope you enjoyed it! Take care of yourselves!


	105. Healing and Hospitals

Hey everyone, welcome to the first update of the year! Thanks for all the wonderful reviews! I read every one of them and they truly make a difference. Without them, this story would never had gotten as interesting as it is, and I wouldn't be as motivated as I am. I've got some new twists for you (yep, once again!) and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I enjoy thinking them out. As a last note before I leave you to this chapter, I have to warn you that while I'll do my best to update as frequently as I did before, for this winter, it may be hard for me to do so, as life has gotten quite busy for me. never fear, though, I'll never abandon this story. You might simply have to wait more than one week to see an update coming.

And now, enjoy this longer chapter!

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The ninja were put in front of a dilemma as soon as they got a breather. Though none of them were medics, it was very clear that Itachi needed a lot of rest and Sakura needed something more than that.

They could try to get her back to Konoha or her village in a hurry, or go the shortest route and leave her in the care of the medics of Sunagakure. The problem was that Suna and Konoha weren't exactly on good terms and the Kazekage only grudgingly supported Sakura.

None of them could follow Sakura to Suna if they sent her there. And that was something that Itachi found hard to swallow. After finally having her back, he had to give her up for an undetermined amount of time? In good faith that she would be treated well and with all due diligence? Indeed, it was a hard decision to make.

Looking at the poor state Sakura was in, he sighed and closed his eyes, feeling torn over it all.

"Let us depart. We will leave sensei in Suna and return to Konoha. That will be best for all."

Kakashi contemplated the young Uchiha silently.

"Going near Suna would be much dangerous for us," he murmured. "Especially you. If the heir of the prestigious Uchiha clan were to be taken...you understand, don't you?"

"I understand," replied Itachi as though it cost him.

"Worry not," came a voice above them. Looking up, they saw Machi approaching swiftly. The gigantic bat landed next to them with a flurry of wings that made them cover their ears and nose for fear that sand would blind them. "Mine son shalt take her to Sunagakure. She will be taken care of there. If you'll excuse me, I direly need to talk to the snakes before our diplomatic relations fail spectacularly."

With a nod, the biggest bat leapt off and disappeared with a puff of smoke, leaving them in the company of a smaller bat of rather impressive size.

"Greetings. If you are ready, shall I carry Sakura-sensei off?" asked the bat in a bass voice.

Itachi took a long look at Sakura and her injuries. He pressed his lips to her forehead briefly, closing his eyes as he inhaled her scent, and gently let her go. The large bat gingerly took her on its back and, assuring them once more of her safety, rapidly flew off.

Itachi sighed tiredly. It seemed he was doing that a lot nowadays.

"Well...Let's get Jiraiya-sama and return to Konoha," muttered Kakashi uncomfortably.

The others nodded, none of them feeling like arguing at the moment. Not even Hidan, who was busy getting the fleshy remains of Orochimaru out of his clothes and hair.

"What about the zombie? You know, the one we left with a sword in his back?" asked Genma, suddenly remembering the loathsome being that had given them so much trouble.

"Nothing we can do at the moment," replied Kakashi. "We can always come back when we find out how to get rid of it. He won't get found where he is. No ninja ventures this way. There's nothing out here. Not anymore. We can be at ease on that count."

"Alright then. It's not like Orochimaru will get him out, ne?"

Kakashi chuckled feebly. "Right."

And so they left the battle scene behind. It was a victory, but on some accounts, it didn't feel like one. 

-:- 

Knowing the Kazekage wasn't exactly favorable To anything pertaining to Sakura, the large bat let its precious cargo a few miles away from Suna and left a scroll clearly addressed to a person who would no doubt help Sakura in the medic's hands. Knowing a patrol would pass by soon, the bat let its aura flare up like a beacon, then, sensing humans, now alerted, were on their way, disappeared. Sakura would be taken care of.

Indeed, moments later, a patrol skidded to a stop on a nearby dune, kunai at the ready. However, no signs of hostility greeted them; on the sand lay a broken body, small and pale.

They approached slowly, cautiously, all of them on their guard for something innocent could well prove to be a trap, and finally stopped next to the injured female. They recognized her, if not by memory, then by description, but none of them knew what she was doing here.

" Any sign of that chakra flare?" asked the leader as a kunoichi bent down to retrieve the scroll.

"None," replied a male, "and it didn't come from her either."

"That scroll is addressed to Chiyo-sama," said the female.

"Any signs of jutsu attached to it?" asked the leader succinctly.

"None."

"Alright, let's take her to the hospital and deliver the scroll to Chiyo-sama as soon as it is cleared by the Research Department."

The strongest male took the medic in his arms. The others took a fan position around him as they raced back to Suna, all of them on the alert in case something popped out of the sand to attack them.

-:-

The old woman was roused from her sleep much earlier than normal. With a frown, she contemplated the ones who had intruded upon her rest. She recognized them, but could not fathom why they would come to her in the middle of the night. In a fewscant hours, the sun would rise from the horizon. Couldn't this have waited till then?

"What urgency had you seeking me this night?" she asked them, fully awake despite her tiredness. "Speak."

"Honorable Chiyo-sama, we have come to deliver a scroll to you," said one of the ninja, extending his hand. She grabbed the scroll, intrigued, and quickly read its contents.

"This could prove to be a problem," she murmured with a frown. "Is the Kazekage aware of this?"

"The scroll was checked for traps before. we handed it to you. It depends on whether or not it was deemed urgent..."

"I must get to the hospital before him." 

-:- 

The girl was unconscious when she came in. Unconscious, pale and bruised, and so she wasn't exactly surprised that she wasn't awake.

She remained stoic in front of the medics who treated the small female, though winced internally as one held up a small hand covered in blood and sand. As he gently washed the flesh clean of debris, she saw how bruised that hand was, and winced outwardly at the thought of the girl's reaction, whenever she awoke.

She was lacking several fingers, she saw, the missing limbs cut cleanly off, which was a small blessing in and of itself, but the wounds hadn't been tended to.

"Are they festering?" she asked the medic responsible for that part of the girl's body.

"Fortunately, not yet. She must not have gotten those wounds long ago."

"That's a relief. Have you found anything of interest in her flesh?"

"Nothing. These wounds were probably made with a scalpel or a very sharp kunai. However, we took a blood sample and sent it for analysis, just to be sure she didn't catch a disease we can't see at present."

For a moment, she remained silent. She direly hoped the girl would wake up soon, but she reasonably knew not to expect too much. She would certainly be disoriented at first, if not in shock, but fortunately, her body could tell them much about where she had been, how long she had been there, and what had been done to her.

"Send Kazekage-sama to me when he arrives. I should be the one to inform him about this. For now, report to me." 

-:- 

The hospital, as usual, was very animated. People came and went, ninja tried to escape their rooms and nurses ran after them, waving syringes and other medical paraphernalia around. In one of the beds, in a room flooded with light, a lone person slept fitfully, unable to rest properly. Nightmares of real, vivid memories were not far away.

The door opened, revealing a most respected member of the village. The woman entered the room, closing the door behind her, and sat down at the bedside of the sleeping ninja.

"You have a knack for getting in trouble. What a troublesome child..." She sighed and looked out the window. The sun shone brightly on the village; it was going to be a beautiful day.

"It's a good day to enjoy life outside. When you get up, you should take a walk outside. It would do your injuries good. The medics say that your body has washed away the remaining toxins already, so you'll get your strength back in no time."

For a long moment, she contemplated the sleeping face, scrutinizing the telltale signs of tiredness and pain that she hoped would fade in time.

"The medics say you're supposed to sleep, that your body needs rest...I still wish you were awake to alleviate my worries...How silly of me."

She smiled grimly. "I know you'll be alright. You always are." _But if you could wake up a bit faster...  
_  
She ran a hand over the patient's furrowed brow with tenderness.

"My son..."

The sleeping boy twitched, eyebrows furrowing some more. His eyes fluttered open, and after a beat, he turned dark eyes upon her.

"Okaa-san?" he asked in a voice that painfully reminded her of times in the past, years ago, when he had sounded exactly the same, pale and ill in his futon.

"Itachi-kun...Welcome home," she answered with a voice that sounded somewhat choked. For an Uchiha, that was quite unusual, and borderline unacceptable.

"I'm home," he answered simply, still feeling rather tired.

And with that, remembering Sakura, he remained silent and took a drop into sullenness.

Mikoto wondered if she should have taken Sasuke along. She had not been sure of how battered her eldest was when she had been warned that he was back, and hospitalized at that. Now that she looked at his despondent form, she thought that maybe she should have brought Sasuke so that he could lift Itachi's spirits.

She almost didn't dare ask about Sakura. But as she knew her son only got in this state when the pink-haired medic was concerned...

"My son, what happened to Sakura-sensei? Didn't she come back with you?"

Itachi closed his eyes, and she could almost hear a sigh coming from him. His voice was flat when he answered.

"She had to go to Suna to get treated."

_Oh._

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. At length, she said, "She'll be fine. And then, she'll come back to you."

She smiled gently, but he kept his eyes closed to reality, to put a barrier between him and the rest of the world that would hurt him if he dared to confront it.

Having come to the conclusion that it would be better for him to be alone at the moment, she ran a soft hand on his brow and got up. His voice, though soft, sounded loudly at her back.

"I know."

With a small, sad smile, she nodded and, without turning back, closed the door quietly behind her. 

-:- 

Kisame heaved and lost the content of his stomach on the ground. Feeble, he rolled away and panted, eyes glassy. He felt like someone had reached down his throat and grabbed his heart and was now trying to wrench it from his body through his mouth.

"Fucking poison..."

At least, the fact that he had lost his dinner was proof that his body was slowly purging itself of the poison and regaining control of its vital functions. It still was disgusting to lie in one's vomit and so he cursed Sasori for the umpteenth time.

Tiredly but without fail, he slowly sat up and looked at the rising sun, resting his forearms on his drawn knees while he regained his breath.

"You sure did a number on me, Sasori-san," he murmured with a grimace, brushing some sand away from a tibia. He glanced to his right. Apparently, the river of sand had finally stopped, probably trapping Sasori's body somewhere under the ground. He wondered how far away from the original battleground he was.

_Probably several miles._

He didn't count on anybody coming for him. For all the Uchiha knew, he was dead—and it should have been so, he was honest enough to admit, if only to himself. He had probably informed the others of that fact, if they had gotten out of the mess alive.

_Guess I should go take a look, just in case._

The chances that a Suna shinobi found him or that battleground were slim at best, so with a sigh of tiredness, he struggled to get on his feet and, once standing, remained still for a good while.

"Damn body. This is no time to rest. What if they've gotten themselves in deep shit? Again?"

He forced his muscles to move, and found gratefully that the more he moved, the faster the poison cleared from his system. That, in itself, was cause for rejoice. Apparently, his chakra was replenishing fast enough that his body could now eat away at the poison that was disrupting its normal functions without much problem. Of course, healing summarily his more grievous injuries did help much.

By the time he managed to find the battlefield, he found no trace of life other than the group of vultures pecking away at what he guessed were the remains of Orochimaru under an unforgiving noon sun. He tore his eyes away from the gruesome sight, looking for trails. Though the Konoha shinobi had been quite adept at hiding their trails, he was better at finding one, having been on the run and part of an organization that specialized in hunting down proficient ninja for a good while.

"So they survived…" he murmured in relief. Even if Sakura had apparently disappeared in direction of Suna, knowing that she was fine was good enough. For now, he would rest for a while, maybe hunt the vultures for food, and then sleep his injuries away. There would always be time to recover Samehada and find Sakura.

In a village, far in the distance, a pink-haired child roused, sun hitting her squarely in the face. She scrunched her nose, reflexively rolled on her side and greeted the day with a loud hiss of pain.

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I really liked writing this chapter. When an arc ends and you have to gather back the strings that you've cast in every direction…it's quite a glorious feeling to say to yourself "Hey, I've done it." Anyway, I feel more relaxed now. I was so tense this whole autumn that I didn't enjoy writing this story quite as much as I used to, but with this break, my energy and motivation are back!


	106. Gaara's Fury

Hi everyone! I was convinced I would be able to post this last weekend, but I had so much work to do I had to put this on hold. I did, however, manage to finish it during the week, so I can now post this (and feel pretty happy about it). Thanks to all of my reviewers, who encouraged me to write faster and never give up. Now it is my time to reward you. This is a Gaara chapter, and I dare say I think all Gaara lovers will enjoy it. Read on, read on…

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She groaned, trembling in pain. What was going on?

There was a noise, some kind of clacking sound, and suddenly something was touching her; she reacted instinctively. She wrenched away, crying out in pain as the sharp movement pulled at her injuries. Why did she hurt? Why did her body hurt so much? What was going on? Where was she?

Her body tensed as something brushed near her; she drew herself in further, curling herself into a small ball. Something pulled on the crook of her right arm painfully with a sting, but she didn't pay it any mind. She was alert for anything that could hurt her, hyperaware of the blood pounding in her temples.

"Please relax. No one is going to hurt you here, sensei." the voice was warm and friendly, but who was to say he wasn't a bulbous monster?

"Who are you?" she asked, edging away slowly.

"My name is Nakamura Kikusui."

"Are you a meanie?" she asked suspiciously.

"Iie, sensei. I am your medic. My job is to take care of you."

"Oh. Alright then."

It hadn't really sunk in, but if he wasn't a meanie, it was fine, then. She yawned and relaxed somewhat.

"I'm tired. Night is sooo long..."

She didn't notice the uncomfortable silence her comment brought on.

It was midday, and sunlight was streaming in brightly. 

-:- 

Kikusui left the room after ascertaining that the nutrition tubes lodged in Sakura's arms had not ripped off. Just outside her room, he ran into Chiyo, who presumably was coming to see how the diminutive medic was doing.

"Ah, Nakamura-sensei. How is she doing?"

"I think there might be a problem we hadn't foreseen. There was something about the way she talked to me..."

"Speak clearly, sensei."

Looking uncomfortably, the medic answered, "I think her mind might be addled."

Chiyo took a deep, sharp breath through her nose. That could be disastrous. Sakura, as a person, was respected for her ideals, her skills and her achievements. More than that, she had gradually become a symbol of hope and peace. A symbol couldn't fail. A symbol couldn't be crazy and, most of all, a symbol couldn't appear fallible.

Will I be forced to terminate her before people realize it? she wondered, feeling a twinge at the thought. She didn't want to be forced to do it.

"Treat her well," she ordered, "and tell no one about this. People must. Not. Know, understand?"

Straightening, the medic snapped to attention at the elder's forceful tone. "Hai, Chiyo-sama!" 

-:- 

Chiyo intercepted the Kazekage before he could enter Sakura's room. The grown man looked at her with a raised eyebrow, waiting for her to explain her audacity.

"My apologies. You cannot enter this room."

"Explain," said the man with a growl of discontentment.

"You know who is behind that door."

"That bloody annoyance..."

She cut his growl off before he could truly begin ranting.

"Hai, it's her. Her state is less than perfect at present."

"And just what does that have to do with me? Let her heal and then boot her out of my village before she comes with ludicrous demands once again!"

"Very well. But I must ask you not to go in there. As you know, your youngest son is certainly very attached to her and the last time she came here, she put him to sleep to stop him from coming with her. If he knew she was here, he would undoubtedly come for her, and she really is in no shape to see him right now."

He crossed his arms across his chest, looking decidedly unhappy. "Yeah, yeah. I know he has uncanny senses. Just keep her mouth shut and I'll make sure the boy doesn't get wind of this."

She nodded grimly. 

-:- 

She shivered, cold sweat rolling on her body despite the intense heat of the day. Her trembling didn't abate as a warm bedding was wrapped around her by careful hands. She didn't react to the outside world, and who knew what was going on inside her mind?

At her bedside, Nakamura sighed. She was not getting better. In fact, her mental state, if anything, seemed to be deteriorating, but that could be due to drug deprivation. That she had developed a dependency to them was alarming. It wasn't as though they could give her those drugs, even if they had had them at hand.

"C-Cold..."

Her teeth were chattering.

Once more, she shivered, and rubbed her arms to try and get warmer. He pondered over whether to wrap her up into something even warmer, but finally decided not to. Even if her body was cold, the fact was that the day was incredibly hot and it wouldn't be healthy if she was cocooned into something that could make her burn with fever within moments.

The doctor's face hardened. He couldn't afford to feel pity or compassion for her. Not if he was going to have to kill her in the event that she didn't heal.

"Fight, sensei," he murmured as he left.

If she heard him, she didn't acknowledge his words. The door closed on the silent room. 

-:- 

Gaara was used to people going out of their way to stay out of his. It was natural, it had always been so, and it probably always would be.

However, he had been quick to notice something was different when civilians, but not ninja, gossiped secretly about a new patient at the hospital. That, in itself, would not have aroused his curiosity much, except that it was evident that the ninja had been forbidden to speak of it and that it appeared that the patient, who no one could approach except for his or her medic in charge even though he or she was not in the restricted and much guarded section reserved for healing prisoners, had been visited by the Kazekage. Or rather, the Kazekage himself had not been able to see the mysterious patient.

How unusual. He wondered why.

And he wondered why his father made it even more a point than usual to not see him and avoid him.

As the two phenomena had happened most coincidently, his inquisitive nature took over and, as soon as night enveloped the village and people retired to their homes, he crept silently along the roofs in direction of the hospital. It was easy for him to avoid the ninja who were running from rooftop to rooftop, but he knew that had it not been so, they wouldn't have been surprised to see him wander at night, as his insomnia was well known to everyone.

Before long, he sat at the edge of the building nearest the hospital, feet dangling in the air as he scrutinized the façade of the building in front of him. From what he had overheard, the mysterious patient was housed in a room on the fourth floor of the south wing. From his vantage point, he could clearly see the row of windows that interested him. The two at the far left were empty, but all the other ones showed a sleeping figure, except for the two that were on each side of a room somewhere to the right. It was unusual. Unusual and interesting. What reason did they have to alienate that room? Was it that the occupant was too loud or that they didn't want people to hear anything that was going on in the room?

He would search that room first.

It was easy to land on the hospital's roof and start scaling down the wall. Apparently, they didn't feel the need to post guards outside to prevent anyone from coming through the window.

Maybe there were orders not to go near that room. He didn't know and didn't care. This was better than sitting all night long on the roof of his home.

He crept down the wall silently and finally reached his destination. Ever so slowly, he opened the windows and landed in the room. In the only bed, the fair-haired patient continued to sleep.

He walked closer, trying to see the face buried in the pillow; a tendril of sand snaked on the bed to brush some hair away from the small person's cheek...

He stilled dangerously. That pale hair was not blonde. There were no eyes behind those eyelids. He knew that face. He knew those cheeks. He knew those lips. He knew.

A name floated in the air, murmured so, so softly.

His sand swirled around him in agitation, but still the figure slept, undisturbed. He observed the small female, noticed the frown marring her features, the slight downturn to her lips, the light trembling that shook her form, and let his sand tuck her in properly.

She settled more comfortably; he noticed that she did not seem completely appeased. Thinking that his presence probably didn't help, as he continually emitted malicious chakra, he retreated to the window ledge and perched comfortably on it to continue to observe her. He would have plenty of time to question her presence in the morning and, more importantly, demand the reason for which she hadn't announced her presence to him. 

-:- 

The medic opened the door, his nose buried in his clipboard. Today, he was going to test his patient's blood to ensure that no drugs remained in it and that she was well on the road to recovery. He closed the door behind him and, looking up, barely managed to catch a glimpse of an unusual figure sitting on the window ledge before he found himself hanging upside down, his ankle caught in a vice grip, the pressure so strong the bones creaked, ready to shatter. He cried out in pain, eyes watering, but found his mouth gagged instantly. Panic gripped him as the child nimbly hopped down from his perch and stood before him, staring him down impassively.

"What is this?" he asked calmly, pointing at the bed. "Choose your words wisely, medic."

That which had gagged him—a piece of cloth held to his mouth by a sand hand—retreated slowly, ready to silence him once more if he yelled.

"She was found several miles from the village about a week ago and brought here. We were ordered to keep her presence secret until she was recovered. Please, can you put me down?" he asked rapidly, feeling blood rush to his head dizzyingly. Already, there were dark spots in his vision and he felt like his heart was going to drop from his mouth, taking with it the contents of his stomach.

By the time he felt his heart pound loudly in his ears and his vision turn almost entirely to black, his only light a pinprick in the middle, he was dropped brutally. He remained still, trying to regain his bearings as his brain readjusted; heaving, he trembled in a heap on the floor, at the mercy of the demon child. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but the grown man was too shaken to feel shame at the display he was presenting.

"Get up, medic, and answer me this: Why is that?"

It took the man a moment to process the words as he shakily got back on his feet. "She was drugged when she was found. We have to see how she'll react to the lack of drugs in the next days and act accordingly. Furthermore, those drugs had a negative effect on her brain and we're trying to see if we can reverse it." It was only part of the truth, but the boy seemed to be otherwise occupied. As the female shifted in the bed, a small hand peeked from the sheets to rest next to her head on the pillow. The boy's head, which had turned in her direction at the movement, snapped back to him, eyes dark in anger.

"What is this?!" he asked, voice tight with rage as he pointed at the wrapped, mutilated hand. The medic felt his heart drop. He was going to die. He knew it. Already, sand was wrapping around him...

In the bed, the female stirred with a frown. She emitted a groaned moan low in her throat and made to roll over the bed. Instantly, a large sand hand shot out and wrapped around her gently. It lifted her and put her back in bed gingerly. The man was dropped to the floor as the boy abandoned him in favour of observing the girl more closely.

The female came to slowly, awakened both by the drop she had taken and the gentle tug that had ensued, and by the sound of someone coughing and rasping nearby. But all that didn't register consciously. They were just elements that fused with her flawed view of reality, mixing with already improbable events.

"Dark, dark...night is a'coming..." she sang softly, eyelids opening wide as she looked around with no eyes. She looked past the males, seeming perfectly lost and afraid. She hugged herself, shivering, and blinked.

Gaara, who had never seen her empty orbits, remained transfixed. He didn't move, didn't speak, unwilling to disturb her, and simply watched as she sadly hung her head. As a sob died in her throat, however, he moved faster than the medic could have anticipated and loosely hugged her to his chest. She remained limp in his arms, though seemed to calm down slightly. Her breathing slowed down, her dry sobs abated and the trembling that had overtaken her lips disappeared. With a small, relieved sigh, she burrowed closer, moving her head so as to feel and hear his heartbeats that much more clearly.

Sitting with his back to the headboard with the girl, whose shaking was slowly disappearing, in his arms while her feet tangled in the sheets messily, sprawled across the bed, the demon child looked almost like a normal person, the medic found himself thinking. Except that twin jade orbs were fixed on him, glaring with the hate and bloodlust of a hundred men.

He got the message clearly : Speak up and die.

If he tried anything, he was dead, he was sure of it, and if he mentioned the demon child's presence, that would only happen that much sooner. At the same time, he had orders from the Kazekage and Elder Chiyo…Someway or another, one of them would be unsatisfied and he would end up being the one suffering for it. Somehow, he felt that his lifespan had decreased by half.

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So, how did you like it? I really had fun writing this chapter, so I hope you had just as much fun reading it. And this is only the beginning!


	107. A Day of Hiding Away

Hello, everyone! Surprisingly, I'm not dead! But I've been really busy. Your reviews made me so warm inside, thanks! You are great! Also, I've noticed that many Spanish-speaking people apparently have tired of waiting for the translated version of this story and have decided to read it in its original language instead. Kudos to all of you, and I hope you don't have too much trouble reading it in English.

And now, I'll leave you to enjoy this!

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Kikusui's head snapped up as he was questioned by the demon child who, by the look of it, didn't appreciate to have to repeat.

"Her state. What is it?"

"Well...She needs medication twice a day, but we've taken her off intravascular feeding."

"So she could get out of here?"

Eh?

His feelings must have shown on his face, for the child frowned, and so he hurried to answer.

"Eto...Technically, yeah..."

Gaara stood with a nod. "Alright. I'll bring her back at night for her medication."

As he disappeared with the female, Kikusui took his head in his hands. What was he going to do if someone came to enquire about her? How could he possibly hide this then?

He felt another five years be drained from his lifespan.

-:- 

Gaara had an easy time returning to his room, where he immediately put Sakura down on his bed. He wanted to hurt her, to make her cry for leaving him behind without giving him a choice. She had refused his help. She had turned her back on him. And look where that got her!

Something dark twisted inside of him. Yes, he would wait until she was healed, and then she would suffer his wrath.

"Stupid girl," he muttered, his words having no real bite to them. Truthfully, he was more hurt than angry, and he wanted her to explain herself.

"I'll heal you. And then you'll answer my questions. And then I won't let you disappear on me again."

She didn't answer, busy palming the area around her. Clearly, she didn't know where she was. It didn't seem to bother her, however, as with one good sniff, a smile appeared on her face and she burrowed in the bedding.

Like a cat.

Somehow, she seemed to recognize his scent; it mellowed him a bit to see that subconsciously, she associated it with positive feelings. It was new to him.

There was a knock at the door.

"Don't come in."

There was a beat, then his sister's voice sounded from behind the wooden panel.

"Is everything alright? I heard voices..."

"Everything is fine," he answered coldly, knowing that she probably sensed that someone else was with him, but that she also didn't sense enough bloodlust to feel concerned for that person's life or general wellbeing.

"Well, I'm going to train. I guess I'll see you tonight."

He didn't answer, feeling that it didn't matter anyway. And it didn't interest him beyond knowing that he wouldn't have to deal with her until later that day.

He returned to his main subject of interest, aka Sakura. The girl was lounging atop his bed, looking quite comfortable, but apparently still lost in her internal world.

"Night sure is long," she muttered to herself with a frown. "Must be 'cause that's where I belong."

While she muttered to herself, occasionally arguing with an imaginary person, he went to his closet and fished out one of his old shirts from a drawer. He had long since outgrown it and, feeling no attachment to it, didn't hesitate to cut a long stripe out of it. With it in hand, he approached the passive female and quickly tied it around her head in one efficient motion. He didn't want her to feel trapped and start panicking, as it seemed she couldn't sense her surroundings anymore and his presence could very well come as a shock to her; she had seemed to forget he was there easily enough, or maybe she was simply blocking him off.

She tensed as the black material was slid over the top part of her face, possibly feeling constrained by the makeshift blindfold, but then turned curious. She poked and prodded at the thing, giggling as it slid up or down at her ministrations.

He got bored of watching her play with the blindfold after a while and thought of ways to repair her. He was used to breaking things, however, not repairing them, and thus for a long time, he had absolutely no idea what to do.

"You are troublesome," he said at length in the general direction of the girl. Of course, she didn't react. "Do you even know who I am?" he asked, hands on her cheeks to tilt her head up in his direction.

She looked confused for a while, then a bright smile bloomed on her face. "Not Snakey Man!"

That threw him for a loop. Was this the rambling of a crazed person or was she conjuring up fragmented memories?

"Who's Snakey Man?" he asked, wondering whether she would answer coherently or not.

"Bad Snakey Man," she whispered to him in confidence. "Bad, Bad man."

As she nodded to herself, he asked, feeling on the edge of an imaginary seat—or precipice, that would work too— "Why is Snakey Man a bad man?"

"He eats fingers for breakfast," she said in a quiet whisper, twisting her hands in her lap. "Are they really that good?"

He wanted to kill someone. Badly.

-:- 

Sakura's stomach grumbled loudly, reminding them both that she had normal earthly needs. Gaara took her to the kitchen and handed her an apple, which she devoured in an instant, and rather messily at that. As soon as she was finished, the boy put a peeled orange in her hand. Soon enough, juice was rolling down her chin, exasperating Gaara who wiped it off gently, earning a bright smile at the end.

"Am I a mother?" he wondered aloud with a shake of his head as he prepared some okayu for the girl.

She ate it sloppily, during which he found himself that even more than that, her clothes irked him. They were, for lack of a better word, drab. Drab, off-white, they looked like the clothes one would dress a corpse in before a funeral. Maybe it was better this way too, as if someone happened to die in the hospital, they would then be clad properly for their funeral, and as people did sometimes die in the hospital...

He glanced at the girl. She was yawning. In a moment, she would fall asleep and he would have time to find her some more suitable clothes. Without her, obviously. There was no way she wouldn't be noticed if he brought her with him. In the back of his head, he thought that it would be much easier to smuggle her out of the hospital if she looked like a civilian. A win-win situation.

He placed the girl on a sofa, covered her with a blanket, and quietly left, hoping to return before she awoke. At this hour of the day, the house was always empty; he had no doubt no one would find her.

He wouldn't know until he came back, but he was wrong.

-:-

The teenager returned home, disgruntled. His latest find had been a setback, and now his hands were full of shards and shallow cuts. He was pissed off and wanted nothing more than to throw his weapons as far from him as he could possibly manage. Taking a deep breath, he headed straight for his designated space at home, i.e. the garage, where he put and worked on his creations. Basically, the one place where he was sure he would not be disturbed.

Before he could get there, however, his stomach grumbled loudly. With a sheepish chuckle, he turned on his heals and walked to the kitchen. On his way there, he went past the living room, and stopped brutally in his tracks as soft snores caught his attention. He knew, for having seen her minutes before, that it could not be his sister, and his father surely was working still...

"No way. When has he ever slept?" he wondered aloud, creeping in slowly in curiosity. On the couch, hidden from view, was possibly his brother, and if it really was him, this was a once-in-a-lifetime moment, he was sure of it.

He tiptoed closer and closer, and finally managed to peek over the back of the couch.

His heart stopped.

Her?!

He scrambled back, eyes wide. What was she doing here? How come he hadn't heard that she was back in the village? How had she known this was his—no, rather, Gaara's—home?

Gaara! Was this some new trick of his to torture him?

He suspiciously whipped his head around, expecting the younger boy to jump out at him from wherever he was hiding, but nothing happened. Still anxiously waiting rather paranoidally, he crept closer and closer until he could plainly gaze at the sleeping girl.

"You look deceptively naïve," he murmured, remembering quite clearly that the female had once tried to kill him. And even knowing that she had planned from the start to only paralyze him didn't help much. There was something about facing your own death dead on...

He itched to hurt her, to get revenge...his fingers twitched a moment before he regained control over his emotions. What good would that do? He was alive and well. Besides, he thought to himself with a shudder, the girl had a formidable ally in his brother, not to mention pretty much every Kage out there, with the reluctant maybe-exception of his father.

"Stop looking so vulnerable," he grouched, and turned on his heels to return to his previous occupation, meaning fill his belly.

Moments later, snack in hand, he went past the living room again on his way to the garage, not noticing that the girl had since woken up and, curious about the footsteps, followed him to the garage. She walked straight into a low table just as he closed the soundproofing door.

With a cry of pain, she clutched her injured limb, but it was soon forgotten as the hide-and-seek game continued.

"I'm gonna find you," she chanted, determined to find the mysterious person. Hands outstretched in front of her, she managed to find the door without mishaps and continued her search in a random direction. Fortunately for her, it was the right one, as she otherwise would have most likely opened the front door and walked straight into the street.

Her hands came in contact with a wall before she could run into it. Following it gingerly, she found the doorknob and fiddled with it long enough that the door was opened brutally by an angry male.

"What the hell—"

Speechless, he gazed at her silently as a wide grin appeared on her face.

"Oooh, found ya!"

He wouldn't have been surprised if she had added "Tag, you're it!", but all she did was sniff around him interestedly.

"This smells so good..."

She got closer, and he grew more unsettled as she outright embraced him to take a good whiff of his scent.

"Wood..." she murmured dreamily. "So dry here, no wood at all...Wood, wood..."

He tried to pry her off of him, but the female held on tight like a flee and wouldn't budge despite his best efforts.

"Damn it, this can't be happening to me...That girl will be the death of me one day…"

He groaned, ran a hand over his face, and sighed deeply.

Why had he come home sooner than usual? And, indeed, he felt a murderous aura directed at him just as he thought so.

-:- 

Kisame hunched over, feeling pain flare up in his abdomen. He needed to heal himself, and food was a bare necessity for that. He looked at the carcass in front of him.

"Disgusting..."

With a frown of disgust, he took out a kunai and approached the gigantic mass of flesh. He knew how to dissect all kinds of animals, and giant snakes were not that much different.

What interested him most was the gigantic skulls and the hide. With those, he could build himself a temporary hideout. It would protect him from the harsh glare of the sun while he pondered over how to take back Samehada and waited to see how things went with Sakura.

Gouging the big dead eyes out brought him an intense satisfaction; taking out the brain and feeling the mass run through his fingers was absolutely gorgeous.

"I've waited a long time to do that, you bastard," he said with a smirk to the head he was cleaning. The empty orbits stared back silently.

Fortunately for him, the cadaver attracted all kinds of beasts ready to feast on it. He dragged a few heads away and waited for the beasts to approach, already selecting his next meal out of them. Two hyenas were dead before they even had a chance to register that kunai were flying at them. They died swiftly; the weapons buried in their cortex saw to that.

Whistling, Kisame walked down the slope, the animals scattering at his approach with yips and barks. Above head, birds of vulture flew off with unhappy quacks. He examined his kills and, satisfied they were well and truly dead, carried them off. He didn't go far, but far enough still that he couldn't smell the decaying flesh. Then he put his survival skills to the test and used a mild Katon jutsu to cook his meat. Afterward, he would use a Suiton jutsu to create a small pool of water. When his hut was done, it would truly be like camping, and he could concentrate on further healing himself.

In the shade of one of the gigantic skulls, lying down, he observed the sky for a moment.

"Heal well too, chibi-sensei," he murmured, and closed his eyes for a well-deserved rest.

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Dear Kisame…I haven't forgotten him, and he'll have an important role soon, too, just you wait!


	108. Trust Like Ice Thawing Off in Winter

Hello, guys! Are you glad to see I'm still alive? I read each and every one of your reviews, and they truly spurred me on to keep writing despite the shit that has been happening to me recently. On a brighter note, my hand injury is steadily getting better, so I can now type better than in the last few weeks. Hopefully I'll feel more amenable to writing if I don't feel pain shooting through my hand every time I try typing. I'm happy you like Gaara's interactions with Sakura, and I gathered that you'd like to see more of Hidan and Young Sakura's interactions, so I'll probably write about them soon, either as an omake or in a scene in Konoha.

Well now, do read!

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"Ne, cousin, don't make that face, you're gonna scare all the girls."

Itachi glared at Shisui, clearly not in the mood. Undeterred, the older Uchiha continued, "Some of us, unlike you, actually appreciate their attention and their company, you know. It's so unfair that you get to have a sweet girl and I don't!"

Itachi continued to walk, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "I do wonder why" rather sarcastically.

"By the way, you could at least tell your favourite cousin, who went to the trouble of stopping by the hospital to congratulate you on your recovery, where you're going," continued Shisui, hands behind his head in a rather casual manner.

"I'm going to the Peach Lodge."

Shisui faltered in his steps, during which Itachi lengthened the distance between them—to no avail, as his cousin shortened it with hurried steps as soon as he recovered. "Eh? The Peach Lodge? Isn't that reserved for important guests of the Hokage's?"

"It is," replied Itachi succinctly, by now abandoning his hopes of Shisui leaving him alone in any short-term foreseeable future.

"Care to tell me what you're going to do there?"

"Not really, no."

"Having a tryst with a gorgeous noblewoman?" asked Shisui with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Itachi shot him a glacial look, sobering him up instantly.

"Alright, alright...It was just a joke, jeez...I know you're loyal to your girl. Everyone does."

Itachi didn't answer. With a sigh, Shisui shut up and merely followed his cousin at a stroll.

Their walk soon led them to a large building surrounded by a tall white wall. The guards by the only entrance nodded to them and let them pass as soon as Itachi explained who he was coming to see and why.

The two were shown to an inviting lounge and waited patiently as a butler retreated to get the noble Itachi had come to see. Meanwhile, Shisui, who had never been to the Peach Lodge, looked around in open curiosity; Itachi, on the other hand, remained as still as a statue and even less expressive than one.

A few minutes went by silently, then the door opened once more and a pretty girl with long dark hair stepped in. She smiled at them as she sat down and motioned for them to do the same. Then, she gave Itachi her undivided attention.

"What news do you bring me?" she asked, tone hopeful.

"My apologies. Sensei did not come back with me. She was too injured to male the trip back to Konoha. It was all my fault. I am deeply sorry."

At his words, the female sprang up, and now observed his form huddled to the ground in a dogeza, looking close to tears and yet as if she maintained her composure only by sheer will. She lifted a trembling hand in a swift movement, and it stayed poised in the air for the longest time before, biting her lip, she deflated and let it fall back to her side.

"Couldn't you protect her?" she asked, voice cracking.

"I'm very sorry," he said, still determinedly looking at the ground. "The bats took her to a safe place, and although I haven't heard news of her yet, she should be getting all the medical help she needs."

"I...I see," said the aristocrat sadly but somewhat relieved. "Please excuse me."

Averting her eyes, she turned around and left the room with a discreet sniffle. She could not bear to be in the same room as him at the moment.

Itachi remained in a dogeza until she was gone, and took a few more moments to compose himself before getting up with a heartfelt sigh.

Shisui, who somehow had had the decency to remain silent, looked at him. "Ne, that girl...I think I've seen her before...Wasn't she the one with Sakura-sensei? The one who was mentally retarded?"

"She is. Apparently, she stayed here to negotiate with Hokage-sama for my release. She was to stay here until sensei came back."

"Except...she's not coming back. Or at the very least, not until a good while."

Itachi sighed again.

"Right."

As they left Peach Lodge, Shisui turned his head to get one last look at the building.

"She was kinda cute, though, ne?" 

-:- 

Kankurou turned around very slowly, in the same way one would act around a very dangerous predator. The words spilled from his lips before he even processed them consciously.

"I can explain."

Mere feet away from him, his younger brother's gaze, if possible, sharpened even more, and he realized that his words had only managed to make the boy even more suspicious and comforted in his analysis.

"I mean, it's not my fault." He bit his tongue at that as those jade eyes narrowed at him dangerously.

Not smart. Think before you speak, idiot!

"I mean, I mean, I just wanted to work on my puppets, and suddenly, she was there and hugging me and stuff!"

Gaara's eyes slowly strayed from him to look, lower, at the pink-haired girl who seemed completely oblivious to the tension in the room. A tendril of sand sneaked out to wrap around her and pried her from the oldest sibling. She didn't fuss much, though it was clear that she didn't like to be disturbed.

"She was never here," said Gaara pointedly, to which Kankurou nodded eagerly. "Dire things could happen to you otherwise."

Sand wrapped around Kankurou's throat, constricting it slowly but surely. His nods became frantic as he slowly turned blue in the face.

He dropped to the ground in a mess as soon as he was released, panting and wheezing. Gaara looked at him coldly, nodded, and left with the pink-haired menace.

_What the hell is going on?_ he wondered, bewildered. 

-:- 

Gaara held off giving Sakura the new clothes, incensed at his brother more because he was worried than because he really thought Kankurou would have done something to Sakura, despite their past. He steamed quietly, his sand swirling agitatedly around him while Sakura wandered here and there, occasionally bumping into his bed or the dresser or other various furniture.

Finally, once he didn't feel like tearing some living thing limb from limb anymore, he tried to engage the female in a conversation which only went to prove that her mind was very much addled.

Will exposition to stimulating things be enough to slowly mend her brain? he wondered, looking at her amble aimlessly in his bedroom. He couldn't be sure, he wasn't a medic.

He glanced outside. The sun was slowly setting down, giving his room a growing amount of darkness that was steadily taking over the brightness that had reigned over his bedroom previously. It was time to return Sakura to the hospital and wrench some answers out of her medic.

The hardest thing in returning her turned out to make her remain silent, as when he ran too fast, she whooped in joy, and when he had his sand shut her mouth, she panicked and flailed in his arms, risking him dropping her by mistake. He had no choice but to go very slowly and hope she would not get excited.

_I can't wait for you to be back to normal so I can strangle you for all the headaches you caused me...  
_

-:- 

Kikusui nearly had a heart attack when he opened the door to find the monster of Suna sitting on the windowsill of Sakura's room, despite knowing this was coming. The promise had been that he'd bring the female back at the end of the day, but some part of his brain had firmly believed that he would keep the diminutive medic and cause a whole lot of trouble, spiced with a manhunt and possibly his demise.

Tensing, he looked left and right, saw to his relief that no one had seen his suspicious reaction, and quickly entered the room, closing the door behind him gingerly.

"Kami-sama, I nearly had a heart attack," he whispered, leaning against the door. He glanced at Sakura, who was back in her bed and twirling her hands in her lap. "Ano...how is she? I mean, how did she react today? Any...change? Improvement?"

Gaara looked at him with dead eyes—those were actually better than his creepy I'm-gonna-kill-you-now-and-thoroughly-enjoy-your-screaming usual look—and deadpanned, " None at all."

Kikusui sighed, knowing that this would probably be the case for a while.

"Yeah...Can't expect things to be much different. This is going to be...arduous. And long. I...can't guarantee anything."

The boy didn't say anything for so long the medic started to tense, cold sweat running down his back.

Finally, Gaara blinked and nodded.

"Do your best to heal her." The "or else" didn't need to be said.

Kikusui breathed a sigh of relief and approached Sakura, reaching in his coat pocket to grab a pill bottle. He popped the cap open, but before he could shake a few pills in the palm of his hand, a tendril of sand stopped him in mid-movement. Fortunately, his wrist was not wrenched with enough strength to send the pills clattering to the floor, but it did startle him, making his eyes shoot up to Gaara's instantly.

The boy was not angry, he saw with relief, but rather curious—or suspicious, as it were.

"What are these?"

Surprisingly, the words were not biting or overly hostile, though it was clear Gaara didn't trust him; not fully, not truly, and not heartily.

_Almost like a normal person_, he found himself thinking.

"Medicine that will stabilize her brain waves. It should hopefully get her more in touch with reality. It's harmless."

Gaara nodded slowly and released his wrist even more slowly. The tendril of sand disappeared at a snail's pace, letting him do his job under the particularly intense and pointed gaze of the demon child.

_Gosh, this is even worse than passing my medical exams under my mentor's scrutiny._

As he thought so, a few blocks away, Chiyo wondered, reading through Sakura's medical file, if maybe she wouldn't have to tell the Kazekage what was really going on with Sakura. She hoped she could keep things under wraps.

-:- 

Kisame made his daily trek up to Kabuto's body, feeling like a pilgrim as he did so. This was becoming a routine. He would get up, eat, take a swim in his makeshift pool so he did not go crazy in this intense heat, and then go straight to Kabuto to make sure his body was still bound to the desert by his sword.

As expected, the zombie was still, eyes dark as he approached. By now, he knew that things were going to be risk-free for him, though it did not mean he didn't stay on guard for unforeseeable events.

"Hey there, you piece of shit. Guess you're still alive. Feel like dying yet?" he asked rhetorically, knowing better than to expect an answer.

He put his hand on Smehada's handle, feeling the sword thrum in pleasure under his fingers.

"Heya, Samehada. Good to see you."

The sword hummed in response.

"Yeah, I missed you too."

Sitting cross-legged next to the seething zombie, he turned his eyes to the sky, leaning back on the palms of his hands, behind his ass.

"I'm thinking of straying a bit in the next few days. Figure if I meet merchants in the area, chances are they'd at least have heard of chibi-sensei, so maybe they can give me news of her. You know how noticeable she is, always getting herself in trouble." The sword thrummed. "Yeah, I wish I could take you with me too. I'll be back as soon as I can. Now, I'll need to disguise myself somehow..."

His eyes landed on Kabuto's bloody, sweaty and grimy clothes. A grimace tore through his face.

"Oh, hell. This is going to be disgusting."

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What do you think will happen when Kisame and Itachi realize no one has any idea that Sakura is in Suna? 


	109. In Which the Threads Start to Unravel

Hey everyone! Though this is the end of Easter Hols, I hope you still have enough time to enjoy this update! I tried my best to update before the end of the weekend, but family didn't give me much time to do so. At least you have a new chapter, right? And I promise you'll like what I have cooked up for you. And Gaara makes a man out of himself, too, for the fans out there.

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Kisame made his trek, draped in bloody, grimy clothes, to his private little pond to wash Kabuto's relics. He didn't want to smell and look like death when he encountered merchants.

The water of his precious pond quickly turned red—he was sure the smell would attract more scavengers—but at least when he was done, the clothes, if in bad shape, were more or less clean. At least, the remaining stains could pass off as dirt, so dark were they.

With a grimace, he set to head south, toward a more frequented area of the desert. He had no intention of leading people to his sword, even if he could easily kill said people with a flick of his wrist.

Despite bandaging his visible body parts with the remnants of Kabuto's clothes so as to hide his general appearance and give him a reasonable alibi for wanting to meet Sakura, he felt the rays of the sun harshly against his body.

"Damn this desert that makes you cook like an egg yolk."

He desperately wanted to kill something bloodily, skewer it and bathe in its blood...

Being alone for so long made his instincts run close to the surface. He needed people to tame them down. He needed Sakura.

"Come on. Now that I'm mostly healed and able to travel once more, I'm gonna take you in my arms and never let you go. And then you'll try to kick my ass for making you worry, and I'll do the same for the same reason, and everything will end happily in a great spar." 

-:- 

"Ne, nii-san..."

Itachi was pulled out of his musings by the gentle and slightly irritated voice of his younger brother. He looked up, gingerly setting his calligraphy brush aside.

"What is it?" he asked calmly, noting that while Sasuke seemed lightly agitated, he wasn't overly stressed out.

"That annoying Naruto keeps pestering me for news of nee-chan."

_And Shisui-kun keeps pestering me for news of Satsuki-san..._

He stayed silent, knowing his silence would prompt his brother to expand on that thought.

"When is she coming? I need to tell him something to make him stay off my back!"

Itachi smiled indulgently.

"Your friendship is going well, ne, otouto-kun?"

Sasuke pouted, crossing his arms across his chest.

"We're not friends."

"Right. You're rivals."

He tried hard to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching.

"Aniki..."

At Sasuke's petulant growl, Itachi got up with a light chuckle and ruffled his brother's hair warmly.

"I understand. I, too, do wonder when she is going to come. Shall I check?"

"Hai! Please do so!"

With a slight smile, Itachi nodded, watching as Sasuke left the room, much more content. Then his smile fell.

Sakura had seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. It seemed that a visit to the Hokage was in order.

-:- 

Kankurou's relationship with his brother became very strange. Not that it hadn't been strange per normal standards previously, but now...He shared a secret with his younger brother, something that had never happened before.

During the day, it appeared that he brought Sakura over often. Most of the time, she stayed in his room while he, apparently, tried to engage her in conversation and tried to make her react to the outside world, which was mostly ineffective.

For the most part, Kankurou didn't have any interaction with her and he usually stayed out when she was in the house. However, there were times when he worked on his puppets in his workshop, and he then saw her and his brother interact. It was strange to see his brother...human...but the whole was rather pathetic. He didn't know what had happened to the girl, but it had left her mind in a jumbled mess.

"Life sure is a strange mistress..." he pondered aloud, working on a new puppet. Somewhere to his left, Sakura slept peacefully, as she always seemed to do when in his workshop. He supposed that the smell of wood that reminded her subconsciously of her home in the Land of Hot Water.

Gaara, who had disappeared who knows where, seemingly trusting him enough to leave the girl with him, reappeared silently.

For a moment, the two brothers observed each other, then Gaara turned to look at the girl. He scrutinized her, jade eyes noting every change that had occurred during his absence, be it a single strand of hair out of place or a new crease in her blanket.

Then, satisfied, the younger brother turned to the older one.

"I need something from you."

He didn't have a choice, of course, but... _Something that will not get me killed, I hope_.

"I'm listening."

The favour was surprising, though not completely so. However, he was not even sure he could accomplish it. Even with his skills.

But he didn't have a choice anyway.

"I'll do it."

Gaara nodded. There had never been a question in his mind that his brother would abide by his wishes. 

-:- 

Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure, rubbed his temples tiredly. He liked the Uchiha heir, he really did, but it seemed that he always brought problems with his every visit.

"Indeed, Itachi-san, I haven't heard of her."

He didn't want to think about what kind of mischief Sakura had gotten herself into again. He liked the girl but not the troubles and sleepless nights she brought him.

He shook his head unhappily.

"That does include from our allies or spies. It may be that they're simply keeping things under wraps until she's healed."

He winced at the critical, unimpressed look the Uchiha heir sent his way.

"Oh come on, I don't know what happened... I'll try to find out, but I can't promise anything. And it really might be that she is simply laying low."

"You know her, Hokage-sama. She couldn't lay low if she tried."

"'Tis true. How very true."

Itachi frowned. The Hokage was not being helpful. He was there, but he wasn't really there. And he didn't appear enthused to get into trouble for the medic. Itachi was tired of him beating around the bush.

"Hokage-sama, that girl is my intended. The future mother of the Uchiha Clan."

"I don't need you to remind me of that."

"With all due respect, it seems I do. If you are willing to simply sit there, I will use all the means available to me as the future Head of the Uchiha Clan to find out what happened to the girl I love and bring her back by my side."

There was such determination in Itachi's voice, such strong fire in his deep black eyes, that Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure , remained silent as the young man turned around and purposely walked out of his office. 

-:- 

Kikusui waited for Gaara to bring Sakura back. It had become a ritual by now. In the morning, he would check on the female before Gaara whisked her off who knows where. He would then work through the day without seeing the girl, then when the sun set down, he would head for her room and, if she wasn't back, would wait for her patiently. He would then run another checkup on her under Gaara's watchful eyes, inevitably tell him there was no change in her condition, and give Sakura her medication, only to repeat it all the next day.

This day was no different, except that there was one more appointment he had to go to after seeing Sakura.

He was a bit distracted as he saw Sakura, but that didn't stop him from doing his job properly—fear of death had that effect on somebody.

What he didn't notice, however, was that Gaara had very much taken note that he wasn't concentrated completely on his job. As he left the room, a silent shadow followed him stealthily.

Thoughtful, the medic went straight to his workroom. Sitting at his desk, he put the notebook in which he kept every information about Sakura on his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. Across the length of his desk, an old woman stared straight at him, unblinking.

"How is she? Anything new?"

Unaware that a certain redhead was listening to the door, the medic let out a long sigh.

"No improvement so far."

"It's been a few months now, Nakamura-sensei."

"I'm aware, Chiyo-obaa-sama."

"I _have_ told you before that she had to get better, I believe, Nakamura-sensei."

Kikusui sighed, tensed.

"Hai, Chiyo-obaa-sama. I have done all that I could. With more time..."

"We don't have more time, Nakamura-sensei," said the old woman, firm though sad, if her eyes were to be believed.

"Obaa-sama..."

"Kazekage-sama is asking questions, and apparently, people are getting interested in the matter. We can't keep this under wraps much longer. Either she gets better and you swear to me that she will make a full recovery or we will have to dispose of her cleanly before her state is known."

"Obaa-sama, I...I can't!" he cried out, desperation laced in his voice as he reflexively shot out of his chair, palms flat on his desk.

"We don't have a choice!" barked the Elder, glaring at him with blazing eyes."If this is known, if it is known that she is crazy...everything could unravel...the status quo could vanish like smoke in the wind..."

"Oba-sama! Please!"

Chiyo got up.

"This is non-negotiable, Nakamura-sensei. If she doesn't get better in the next week, I'll have her disappear for good."

With a last hard gaze at the desperate medic, she left the room with determination. Her eyes were hard as she marched down the corridor, though with each step she took, her vision got more blurry. Suna was not a humid place at any time of the year.

Plastered to the ceiling right outside the door, Gaara frowned, trying not to let his anger get the best of him and reveal his presence. If Chiyo knew he had heard every word...

Finally, when he was sure she was far, far away and would not come back or sense him, he dropped down silently to the floor. At the slight sound his feet made, Kikusui's bent head snapped up.

His eyes widened.

"You...you heard it all..."

"Should I kill you now?" asked Gaara with an impassive face.

In a split-second, Kikusui made one of the hardest decisions of his life.

"Get her out of Suna. Tonight if you can. As things are now, I can't do anything more for Sakura-sensei. But I've heard that there is a clan in Konohagakure that can get into people's heads. Maybe they could know more and do something about whatever is impairing her cognitive faculties."

Gaara cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Don't you get it? She will be...terminated if she stays here!"

Gaara remained silent, only nodding after a long, tense and awkward moment.

"I understand that. But why would I believe you are ready to risk so much to keep her alive? You don't know her personally."

"Look," said Kikusui, exasperated and quite ready to tear his hair off by tufts, "as a medic, she is pretty much unparalleled. She's like a focal point for all medicine. Her mere presence drives medics like me to get better and better. We medics dream to be sent to her village on an apprenticeship, or simply on a convention. We get to exchange our knowledge with other medics, leaders of their own areas of expertise! But what if she disappears? She did so before and things just weren't the same! But at least people thought that there were chances that she was still alive! If she's dead, truly dead...that medical heaven won't last in the long run. I know it won't. I can't have faith it will."

Gaara, who had remained silent, snorted. "Keep her disappearance under silence for as long as you can. You can do that much, ne?"

The "I'll do the rest" was left unsaid, though was very much felt between the two males.

In a swirl of sand, the younger of the two disappeared, leaving the older male to wonder if he had made the right choice, or if there had been a right choice to make at all. 

-:- 

Kankurou was literally wrenched away from his bed. With an oomph, he fell to the floor, blinking sleep away from his eyes.

"What the..."

In the moonlight, his brother's silhouette was rather eerie, but he was more surprised to see Sakura in his arms, dressed differently than usual. Gaara had clearly gotten her back to the hospital, so why was she back now?

"What's the matter?"

"That thing I asked you for, do you have it?"

"Eh? Sure, it's pretty much ready. I was thinking of making a few last adjustments to it this week. "

"I need it now."

"Now?" repeated Kankurou stupidly, bewildered.

"Now."

"Okaaaaaay...Wait a minute. It's in the workshop, in the top drawer of my desk..."

And just as suddenly as he had come, Gaara was gone with a mysterious "I free you now" that Kankurou wouldn't understand until he discovered along with the whole of Suna that his brother had disappeared.

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Whew! At last, huh? Aren't you all glad that things are finally starting to move again?


	110. Rise of the Manhunt

Once again, I'm back. Surprising, I know...Especially since I really should be studying...What can I say, I needed to relax. Most of this was written today, somI hope that in my sleep-deprived state, I didn't make too many mistakes.

I hope you'll enjoy this chapter, and I hope to be able to give you the next chapter quickly, as I itch to start writing it already!

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Approaching merchants without seeming like a dangerous person was, for a dangerous person, hard to do, and an art in and of itself. Experienced merchants seemed to have a sixth sense about them that allowed them to recognize those who wished them harm or, more importantly, to rob them of their possessions and gold.

Kisame, having enough experience as a nuke-nin, knew not to underestimate the caravan he found. Even if he didn't care about the merchants personally, there were things they could tell him that he had a vast interest in. After all, merchants brought with them rumors wherever they went. If someone had heard of his little medic and how she was, there were good chances that this group had news of it.

Bandages covering most of his kin and his tattered clothes doing the rest, Kisame used a mild henge to change the color of his skin so that if his bandages unraveled, he wouldn't be recognized immediately.

Protecting his head from the sun with a makeshift turban, he deemed himself ready and took a tangent, knowing the merchants would glimpse at him and calculate his trajectory as non-threatening. It was all in measuring a trajectory that would make him cross the merchants' without making them suspicious as to why their paths would cross.

Eventually, with all the patience he could use under the circumstances, he was hailed by the civilians—though he was pretty sure there were at least three ninja hidden as civilians among them.

He stopped ahead of the caravan, and they slowed down as they reached him, eventually stopping before him.

"Greetings, merchants," he called out to them peacefully, arms at his side in a non-threatening manner.

"Greetings, traveler," replied one of the merchants, an old man who looked like he had cooked in the sun his whole life. "What are you doing in such a deserted place?"

"I was headed for the medical village, I heard there was a medic there who once managed to regrow a woman's skin, and mine was burned pretty bad in a fire. I can't even look at my face anymore."

"Ah, yeah. Sakura-sensei, wasn't it?" said the old man slowly, thoughtfully. "Tough it may be a waste of time if you're going to see her specifically. She hasn't been there in...hm...several months now, I guess. Though she was last heard of in this country at least, even if it was months ago. Maybe she's still here, on a vacation or something. If not, I guess her people would still be able to help you."

Kisame was, needless to say, surprised. He had been certain that Sakura would have gone back to her village, if only to run some tests in her beloved cave, alone and peaceful. Not letting his feelings show in his posture, he nodded slowly.

"Thank you, merchant. Maybe I'll try to find her in the villages along the way."

The old man shrugged. "Glad to be of service, traveler. Good luck."

The merchants continued on their way, blissfully unaware that they had come close to one of the most dangerous nuke-nin alive who, for his part, wondered whether he should be worried or pissed.

-:- 

Jiraiya was a pervert at heart. He knew that, accepted it, and thrived in it. In fact, at the moment, he very much appreciated it, giggling silently as he observed pretty women chat to themselves in the onsen.

He crept closer, glad that the heavy foliage of the tree he was hiding in provided enough cover to hide him properly. The branch creaked slightly, but not enough to worry him.

"Nice view, nice view..."

A bird screeched in the sky, disturbing him. He frowned, looking up for a moment, eyes widening as the bird dived straight at him.

"Hell—"

The bird settled on the branch, slightly ahead from him, and just in his way, too, for now he had a view on a bird and _not_ on beautiful women, and stared at him, coking its head.

"Damn it, why am I always interrupted when I look for inspiration?"

The bird looked at him, chirping at him annoyingly.

"Alright, alright, I get it. Damn it all..."

He snatched the scroll away from the bloody bird and opened it with an angry yank, eyes roving down the neat script with more and more gnawing suspicions.

Something didn't sit right with him.

He read the letter once more.

"Itachi-kun...You sure are good at making my head spin."

He glanced at the letter. Come to think of it, when was the last time he had heard from his daughter-who-was-not-really-his?

He closed his eyes, thinking. When he had been discharged from Konoha's hospital, he had rather rapidly gotten out of the village. He had known then that the girl he had gotten attached to had not come back to Konoha, but had rather been sent to Suna to be healed. Still, the news Itachi had sent him were surprising. Apparently, she had not been heard of in the village. Or anywhere else.

"What did you get yourself into, Sakura-chan..." he murmured pensively. Maybe it was time to pull a few strings and contact a few of his spies.

A cry sounded from below, and then something connect sharply with the side of his head.

"Hentai!" 

-:- 

In the moonless night, a lone figure stole into a building near the wall surrounding the village. Silently, the male peered at a figure patrolling the wall, glad for countless sleepless nights that had allowed him to learn by heart the patrolling patterns of the shinobi in the area.

He silently waited for the shinobi to pass by his hiding place, breathing a sigh of relief when the other male didn't react to his presence. He waited a bit longer, then got out of the building and started to climb the wall. The timing for this part was tricky, but he was less visible than a shadow and had planned this carefully. He vaulted over the wall easily, slipping on the other side just in time to avoid the sharp eyes of another guard. As he waited with bated breath for the new guard to continue his rounds, he plastered himself to the side of the wall, trying his best not to stand out, especially considering the heavy, lumpy luggage on his back.

He was not averse to killing the guard, but it would attract unnecessary attention, and that he could not afford. If he could have a few more days before everyone knew what he was up to, he would certainly not blow away his chances.

He wasn't overly worried, aware of his own skills, but he really would rather not fight unless he had to. Oh surprise.

The new guard stopped a few feet away, observed his surroundings, then continued on his way.

Quite happy with the way things had gone, he quickly scaled down the wall, using all his skills to remain hidden, and crouched at its bottom long enough for the next guard to pass by above head.

Then, he ran off into the desert, his precious cargo safely tucked under his arm. As a sandstorm started to pelt his face with miniature shrapnel, he thought to himself that with the elements on his side, he could very well gain a day or two before the Kazekage discovered what he had been up to.

-:- 

As day after day passed, Kankurou noticed that his younger brother didn't show any sign of his presence. His room—that he had actually dared to enter—looked frankly untouched and unperturbed as per normal, even by ninja standards. Dared he think that Gaara had left the premises?

He smiled lightly to himself, only to start when his sister crept up on him.

"What'cha smiling about?" she asked, picking at a spare puppet part with mild distaste.

"Nothing," he replied, regaining his wits about himself quickly. "Just thinking that it's been a while since Gaara has tried to kill me."

She tapped her chin lightly, pensive. "Yeah, you're right. Maybe he's tired of looking at our faces. We should enjoy the break while it lasts."

He nodded, though there was a niggling little voice at the back of his head that told him Gaara had some other plan in mind. He didn't know what the redhead had meant when he had come to him in the middle of the night, but he was pretty certain there was more to it than a simple social visit to his older brother.

Now that he thought of it, he hadn't had to play babysitter for Sakura either since then. Maybe Gaara had decided to push her onto someone else. If only that could be so simple.

He chose to close his eyes voluntarily. Unless things blew up epically in his face, he would keep silent about Gaara and his new 'social project.' 

-:- 

Suna's Kazekage was a man who, though used to bad news, really didn't like receiving them.

He especially didn't like receiving them at the end of a long day.

And most of all, he detested when they concerned his younger son.

He knew that, and pretty much everyone in Suna knew it—most of all his ninja—and he sure as hell expected the bearer of bad news to know it. And such his harsh gaze conveyed.

Said bearer of bad news stared back impassively and only added oil to the roaring fire that was the pyre of his anger.

"Both of them. Gone the same day. There are traces of his presence in her room. I can only presume that he found her by accident and decided to carry her off. They might still be in the village."

"He would have caused a ruckus then. What irritates me most is that we haven't heard of him. It's worrying. He is usually explosive. This is like a simmering anger that ferments until it finally explodes. He must be found before then."

The old woman nodded, a harsh glint in her eyes mirroring his.

"Hai. I will arrange for it discreetly."

"I don't care about the girl even if you do. But she made him do this, pull this...stunt of his. If she dies during the retrieval, I won't be especially sad."

"It may cause him to get into a blind rage, considering how possessive he is of her," she pointed out calmly, receiving a frown in answer.

"I know. I'll leave the logistics up to you. Do not disappoint me, Chiyo-baa-sama."

"I won't, Kazekage-sama."

There was no need to say it. She would carefully select a handful of ninja to do the job, knowing that if they failed, she would probably be banished from the village.

What a mess. 

-:- 

Though young, Gaara was not inexperienced. He was well aware that there were a few areas he should stay clear of, starting with Sakura's village. Once people knew he had taken her, they would expect him to go to her village to have her healed.

They could also expect him to head to Konoha, as she was well-known there and would be protected by both the Hokage and the Uchiha.

So he would do neither.

The desert was his hunting grounds, where he was most at ease. This was where he would stay, until the last of Sakura's injuries were healed and the brunt of the hunting force died down.

Also, and this was so simple that many a ninja would laugh at the idea and yet be fooled by his stratagem, he would have to make it so they did not look at all like the ones who would be hunted down.

Which meant, first, to add a third party to their duo.

An innocent civilian would do just the trick.

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So? How many of you were surprised that they aren't heading to Konoha? Hm?


	111. Hunting in Ryuusha

At last! I've passed my exams, so I can now relax and go back to writing. Happy? I'll do my best to return to my previous updating schedule, but I thought you'd prefer this sooner rather than later. Was I right?

Thanks to all of my reviewers, you encouraged me to keep going when I was at my worst. This chapter is dedicated to you!

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The small village of Ryuusha was, in accordance with its name, surrounded with quicksand. It was both a blessing and a curse for the villagers as while it kept most people from visiting and attacking their village, it also meant that those who did were much more dangerous, aka of the ninja variety.

Travelers were few and far between, and the poor people of Ryuusha liked it that way.

What was unusual, however, was seeing children come into the village so easily. They were accompanied by a middle-aged man sporting a beard that covered half his face. The boy seemed quite protective of his sister, draping an arm around her shoulders as they walked through the village, but he didn't seem afraid of the man accompanying them, so the villagers thought that it was most probably a ninja accompanying them back home.

They checked in at the only hotel, one used exclusively by ninja, as they seldom had visitors and family usually stayed with their relatives.

There was one team in the building when they got there, but fortunately, they didn't encounter them on their way to their room.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Gaara put the medic in bed. Unlike him, she needed to sleep now and then, and she was almost zombie-like with lack of sleep.

She sank into the bed with a sigh of satisfaction, quickly falling asleep. Listening to the soft snores of the girl, he thought about his next move. He could not allow the middle-aged man out of the room, as any ninja he encountered would notice he was a clone. That was not a risk he could afford to take. He could keep his henge on when he went out of the room, but he didn't intend to stay long. It was hazardous to stay in a place where ninja came and went regularly, and he was already well-known, as was Sakura. They could not be identified.

He glanced at the girl. Her long sleeves engulfed her small, broken hands, hiding them from sight under cream-coloured cloth. Now that her large-brimmed hat lay forgotten on the floor, only the cloth he had wrapped around her head and under her chin disguised her, providing some protection from the sun and sand.

She looked tired.

As he thought such, her stomach grumbled loudly.

And she was hungry. So was he, now that he thought of it.

His clone remained at Sakura's side as he walked out of the room in search of something edible. He closed the room behind him, careful not to make a noise, lest he wake up the medic. This business was tiresome. He hoped she would get better soon so he could kick her ass for leaving him out of the loop the last time she came to Suna. Maybe kill her.

He stopped in his tracks in the middle of the stairs.

Or maybe not. She was pretty much the only person he actually liked being around.

Eyes hard, he headed for the modest dining room of the establishment. It was mostly empty, with just a team of Kumo ninja that eyed him inconspicuously as he walked in. Apparently, he acted enough like a normal child that they didn't feel suspicious of him. Not enough, at least, to grant him more than a few glances out of the corner of their eyes now and then.

He sat at a table that afforded him a good view of the room and didn't leave his back unprotected. Within moments, the owner's wife walked up to him, sporting a welcoming smile on her portly face.

"What can I do for you, young boy?" she asked gently. "Would you like a bowl of soup?"

"Hai. And tea, please."

"Of course, dear. Anything else?"

Gaara shook his head, doing his best to temper down his killing instincts around the other ninja in the room.

"That will be fine. But when I'm done, if I could have a bowl for my sister? She's sleeping upstairs..."

Smile widening, the woman nodded, eyes creasing at the side.

"Certainly, dear! I'll save a bowl for her. Just come to me later when you've finished your meal, alright?"

She left in a flurry of robes, weaving expertly between the few tables. He watched her go in silence, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious from the team of ninja when she reappeared a moment later with his soup. If they so much as glanced at his bowl when the woman passed by them...But no. They seemed content enough to discuss their business in whispers and murmurs, punctuated here and there by handsigns.

He did discreetly check his bowl for poison, quickly gulping down the warm liquid upon finding none. It was not a particularly good soup, but he did need the calories it contained; he didn't grumble about the taste.

Not particularly looking forward to having several ninja spy on him, he polished off his bowl at a normal pace and took it back to the kitchen, where the portly woman was chopping vegetables with efficiency—for a civilian. Ninja would have done it so much faster.

She turned around at his deliberately loud footsteps.

"Oh, you're finished already? Was it good?"

He nodded, quietly handing her his bowl. With a small smile, she took it from him and quickly filled a second bowl with the rest of the soup. Toning down his innate killing instincts as she came closer to hand him the now smoking hot bowl, he nodded calmly. He headed for his room with a last promise to leave the bowl by the door when his sister was done.

Sakura was still sleeping when he entered the room, but knowing that she needed the nutrients, he woke her up and fed her patiently, letting her go back to sleep once she had finished the bowl of soup. His clone observed them quietly, telling him that no one had come by or tried to, which he already knew.

He thought to himself for a moment. Sakura quite obviously needed to rest, but he was unsure how long they could afford to stay. The fact that he knew how to manipulate sand at will had helped in their escape and they hadn't yet encountered hunter-nin, but it was only a matter of time before they did.

"How soon is too soon," he wondered aloud. "And how late is too late..."

His clone had carried his gourd in a nondescript sack in the village, but he was getting irritated at having to hide it—it would have been a dead giveaway of his identity—and that only made him wish they could leave sooner. 

-:- 

Kisame cursed loudly as he lost footing, his left leg suddenly sinking up to his knee in the deceptively friable ground. He toppled over, falling heavily to his side and subsequently getting a mouthful of sand as it started to engulf him.

"Damn carnivorous desert!"

He pushed chakra into his limbs to climb off the quicksand and brushed himself off distastefully. He had had enough of the desert. It was dry, it was windy, it was hot, and it seemed to try to swallow him at every turn.

In fact, he seemed to be in an area where he couldn't take two steps before stumbling onto some more quicksand.

He snarked some more, heading in the general direction of what seemed to be a small village planted in the middle of nowhere. Once there, maybe he would get more news.

He was very much annoyed and disgruntled when he finally made it to the village, and promptly checked in at the only hotel of the place, leaving a trail of sand behind him as he went.

In the dining room, he met the owner's wife and asked her a question that put her off by its unique bizarreness.

"Do you get a lot of bats here?"

She looked at him silently for a moment, taken aback, then frowned, thinking about his question.

"Well...We haven't had any for years. I think the village Head had some in his attic a few weeks ago, but I wouldn't know if there are still some now..."

"Is that so," he murmured disinterestedly. He took a look around, then said, "Pretty quiet here. Is it always like that?"

"Well, we mostly get ninja here in passing. It's rare that we get civilians, though there were two kids here a few days ago with a ninja escort. They were cute siblings."

He observed her, noting her wistful smile as she talked. Apparently, she had quite liked having kids in her hotel. Already, he thought of the bats. He hoped there would still be some. He wanted his bat hunting to be successful.

He wanted to wait until nightfall to begin his hunting, but waiting in his room, lying on his bed with both hands behind his head, staring blankly at the ceiling was killing him. He was nearly mad with boredom and anticipation when the sun finally disappeared under the horizon.

Slipping out of the window of his room, he hopped from rooftop to rooftop stealthily, crouching low to avoid being spotted. Delicate prodding had gotten him the exact location of the village Head's house, which he was now heading to. It was not hard to spot, being bigger than the other houses of the village.

He knew that most bats went out of their shelters when the sun set, so if he didn't want to have to look all over the village for an elusive insect-eating volatile, he had to get a move on.

He lay flat on the roof of a house directly next to the target house, and waited. He could see there was a small hole below the roof where the bats could get in and out of their nesting place. Eyes riveted on that spot, he waited for a sign of life, for a tiny animal to fly out of that hole...

He sprang into action.

"What have we here?" he murmured, looking at the tiny living being trapped in his large hand. Snatching it in midair had been easy with his speed and agility, and the little bat now trembled in his fist, heart beating madly in its little chest. "Speak, little one."

The bat squeaked. His brow twitched.

"Don't fuck with me. This village is visited primarily by ninja; it's a prime place to gather information, so don't you dare pretend you don't understand my language."

The bat stilled with a flinch, suddenly becoming quiet and deathly still, though he could feel its heart beat franticly in its tiny chest, just beneath his fingers.

"Talk to me."

Finally, a tiny voice was heard from the diminutive bat.

"What do you want, human?"

"I'm looking for my girl, and I've got a feeling your kind would know where she is. Sakura-sensei is your summoner, so you guys must know of her whereabouts."

The bat wiggled a bit in his fist, but he didn't let up. He wanted the bat to feel the pressure. His voice turned sharp. "Talk."

"She...We don't know. She hasn't summoned anyone in a while, and last time, we were only able to come to her because...because Chiyoko-chan sacrificed herself to let us know her location..."

Kisame cursed.

"When am I finally going to find you, Chibi-sensei?"

"You...that nickname...who could you be? Only one person calls her that and you don't look like him...unless..."

The bat seemed to concentrate, then relaxed minimally.

"Aaah...then it's you."

"Yeah, I know who I am. Now, are you able to tell me anything at all?"

"Not really. Unless she contacts us, we can't do much. We're keeping an eye out for her, but so far...although I myself don't know everything. I just gather information."

"Then you'll take me to Machi-sama. She will know everything."

The bat suddenly looked uncomfortable. "That...It's not exactly the best time to see her...she's...kinda busy."

"Busy? With what? Her summoner's out there, possibly injured or dead, and she's busy?!" asked Kisame, incredulous.

"Well, with the trial, of course. The negotiations are coming to a halt."

There must be something he had been left out of, because he had no idea what the bat was talking about. 

-:- 

Unaware that Kisame was where they had been mere days before, Gaara headed further away from Suna. Knowing that making a fire would immediately attract anyone within a ten-mile radius, he wisely kept from making one. Without one, however, the night was dreadfully cold in the middle of the desert and soon had Sakura shuddering.

With a sigh, Gaara, as he had done several nights in a row, draped a heavy woolen blanket around her shoulders. She burrowed into its warmth gratefully, forming a cocoon from which only a few tufts of hairs could be seen. He himself didn't care all that much about the difference in temperature between day and night, but then again, he had grown up in the desert village of Sunagakure. It was apparent that Sakura, for one, wasn't used to the subzero temperature of the desert at night.

He felt like a mother, something that was happening more and more as of late.

He got up to take a tour of the perimeter, making sure that they hadn't left any tracks to follow and erasing any sign of theirs. He couldn't and wouldn't leave anything up to chance.

As he returned to their small camp, however, he saw something peeking out of Sakura's homemade cocoon, something that hadn't been there when he had left. And that something was moving.

Blood rushed to his head, pounded in his ears as he sprinted back to her side, whipping a kunai out. He yanked the blanket off of the medic, revealing a snake that was attached to her neck, curled around it even, and was staring straight back at him with yellow eyes, fangs buried deeply in Sakura's jugular.

By the pattern on its body, he could tell it wasn't a harmless, non-poisonous serpent.

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So, I'm throwing you a curveball there. Surprised? How many of you were sure that Kisame would meet them in the village? Muahaha, nope! But yeah, they'll meet at some point and Sakura will get better very soon (I, too, want her to be her usual self again, but it isn't that simple).


	112. On the Move

Sorry for the insanely long wait. this chapter, believe it pr not, was actually ready about a week ago, but I'm moving put and, of course, I couldn't go on the Internet with my computer, which meant while I could check my reviews on my IPad, I couldn't post this little baby. Sigh. And so I'm back with a long chapter (or so it feels to me, since many things happen in there) that you'll hopefully like. Some last preparations for our lovable characters, and then it's action, dearies!

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"Itachi-kun, as the situation remains unchanging, we won't detain Satsuki-sama here any longer. It would be unnecessary and she has made clear her wish to return to Myou, repeatedly so. You are to escort her back to the medical village with Shisui-san and Hana-san."

Itachi nodded, face as neutral as he could make it under the circumstances.

"You leave tomorrow at dawn."

Itachi saluted and left silently.

He headed to the Uchiha district thoughtfully, grimacing slightly when a bundle of energy whipped out of nowhere and grabbed him bodily to drag him into a teahouse that overlooked the street. He graciously let himself be dragged to a small table, and sat down, his assailant doing so on the other side of the table moments later.

"Shisui-san...What is it this time?" he asked tiredly at his cousin's antics.

"Now, now, Itachi-kun, don't look so damn annoyed! You know you need as much fun in your life as I can deliver, and you secretly enjoy it too. So just relax a bit, drink a cup of tea in my company, maybe eat a couple of dango, watch the pretty girls on the street...Enjoy life a bit!"

Itachi remained stoic but did quirk an eyebrow at that.

"I will not have much time for that, Shisui-san. And neither will you. We have a mission."

Shisui leaned forward, looking interested. "Oh, really? What is it? Is it interesting?"

"Hokage-sama has decided that it is time to send Satsuki-san back to Myou. We are to escort her."

"Oh, the cute aristocrat? Yay, an easy mission with a pretty girl!" Shisui was evidently enthusiastic, Itachi less so, but enough so that it peaked his cousin's interest. "There's something on your mind. Speak up."

Itachi sighed and took his head in his hands. "Everything just...I've lived this before, and I still wonder how I got through it. Everyday, I wake up and wonder if she's well, if she's alive at all..."

Shisui turned somber.

"Yeah, that...have there been any news?"

Itachi looked at him with dead eyes. "Iie. My hands are pretty much tied, but Otou-sama has everyone on the lookout. Discreetly, of course, but...it's like she has disappeared into thin air. I know she was sent to Suna to recover, but her trail seems to have disappeared there. I plan on meeting with Jiraiya-sama on our way. Myou is in the Land of Hot Water. For a notorious pervert like him, that's ideal for peeping on bathing women and he was last seen in the area. I'll find him and make use of his spy network."

Shisui nodded somberly, speaking as softly as his cousin had. "We can take a few days to officially rest once we're there. No one will blame us for that. I'll help you, cousin of mine. We'll find out what happened, if only to get you closure."

Itachi nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Shisui-san." 

-:- 

Jiraiya hummed slightly to himself, enjoying his warm bath. This was truly a luxurious thing, and he intended to savor every bit of it. He sank into the hot springs just a little more, closing his eyes with a sigh of happiness.

Something fell in the water in front of him, splashing his face with warm water. Spluttering, he opened his eyes reflexively to see that a monkey had fallen off its branch and landed in the hot spring with him. After splashing about for a moment, the animal swam away and settled, still in the hot spring, on a rock further away.

He chuckled low in his throat and settled back comfortably in the hot water.

He would take things slow for a moment, because soon he would have to go back to gathering information that was not forthcoming.

He closed his eyes with a content sigh and relaxed once more, listening to the soft sounds of the nature surrounding him.

Just as he entered a stage of complete relaxation, a loud crack made his eyes snap open just in time to see a ninja drop down into his hot spring, causing a much more substantive splash than the previous monkey had.

He reached out swiftly and yanked out the ninja by his collar, his glare losing some of its vindictiveness at the sheepish grin that he sported.

"'Sup, Jiraiya-sama!"

"Itachi Shisui-san. Never mind what takes you here, why did you feel obliged to disrupt my bath?" asked the Sannin with a raised eyebrow.

Shisui scratched the back of his head sheepishly, fidgeting in the older man's grasp. "Actually, I'm not here for myself. Rather, it's Itachi-kun who needs your help. Desperately, if you get my meaning," he said with a pointed look.

Releasing him, Jiraiya nodded. "I understand. I've been working on that myself, without much luck. I haven't heard of her in the direction of Suna or anywhere else, although it appears that Sunagakure is in an uproar at the moment."

Shisui climbed out of the hot spring, divesting himself of his wet clothes as Itachi appeared to their right.

"Heya, Itachi-kun," said Shisui. "Guess what? Suna, too, appears to be in a twist, so at least you're not alone in that capacity."

Something shone in Itachi's black eyes.

"Why?" he asked, something more than curiosity in his voice.

"This is only a rumour at this stage, but it seems that someone important disappeared from Suna," answered Jiraiya.

Itachi frowned pensively.

"Any chance that it could be Sakura-sensei?"

"I don't think so. I'm waiting for confirmation, but my guess would be that it concerns the Kazekage's son, as he hasn't been seen recently, and everyone knows the incidents he causes regularly."

Itachi quietly sat down on a boulder, pensively running a hand through his hair. "Supposing this rumour is true...why would he suddenly run away, after all these years? Why indeed..."

He looked straight at Jiraiya.

"Can you find out about this? Something doesn't seem right about this somehow. I wish I could go to Suna..."

Shisui shook his head in understanding.

"Can't do that. We're already stretching this trip thin, it's absolutely impossible for us this time. But maybe you can ask for a mission in Suna when we get back, ne?"

This was precisely Itachi's thoughts, but he merely smiled, relieved, and said, "At least now you can say goodbye to Satsuki-san, and not behind my back to spare me."

Shisui smiled brightly, eyes twinkling. 

-:- 

Gaara felt his ire mounting, but not less so than his anxiousness. He recognized the colour patterns of the snakes of the desert, and he knew, without a doubt, that this one was highly poisonous. Already, his mind was whirring away, trying to find a way to save Sakura. The snake kept him from moving, piercing him with a cold, intelligent gaze. Slowly, carefully, the snake took its fangs out, still coiled tightly around Sakura's neck.

"Do not move, human. She is only paralyzed, though I'm not averse to killing her either if you try anything."

Gaara's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"I'm the only one who is allowed to kill her, snake."

The snake smirked. "That is yet to see. Her living or dying depends on the outcome of the trial. If Manda-sama wins the trial, all of us snakes will hunt her down, though it seems that I will be the one to get to kill her."

Gaara's killing intent smothered the reptile as his eyes glowed in a glower fueled by his internal fire.

"Then take me to that trial. It seems that I definitely need to assist, as an interested third party."

His tone didn't brook any argument, so ready was he to tear the snake in two for its utter audacity. Seemingly sensing this, the snake slowly leaned back as if to put more distance between them, obviously thinking it over. Finally, with a cunning gaze, it hissed slowly, "Very well, human, but be aware that where we go, no one will have any empathy for you and your human feelings."

Gaara stayed silent, his glare intensifying. With a smirk, the snake said, "Come closer, and grab a hold of the tip of my tail. We are going for a trip home."

Moments later, the cold night wind of the desert swept across the area, scattering a few embers that slowly died under the cool gaze of the moon. 

-:- 

Inner Sakura gazed blearily up, head pounding as she slowly inhaled some of the toxic green fumes that permeated the place, lazily swishing around a up to a few feet above the ground, where it formed a heavy, dense cloud. In the beginning, it had taken over everything, but with time, it had started to fall to the ground, ever so slowly, and now, if she managed to stand up, she probably could breathe more easily and be free of the most of the toxicity that had incapacitated her. But she was too weak, too dizzy to even think, and could only stare at the ceiling in a daze, unaware of what she was seeing and completely unable to perceive any difference if it happened. She had long since stopped trying to fight back, having succumbed to the poison long before.

She lay there, unresponsive, blinking tiredly occasionally.

She was weak, so weak, as she had always been, right? Time had passed but she still was unable to protect herself...

And now she lay in the broken remains of what had been her mind, boulders and whole pans of wall having long crumbled to the ground while she inhaled toxic fumes and drowned in insanity.

She felt, deep, very deep down, that something was changing, but she was too tired and too injured to care. She only hoped that whatever that change was, it was something neutral, if not positive. 

-:- 

Machi remained still as as few other bats helped her don her traditional ceremonial robes, the crimson fabric covering her whole body in flowing waves but leaving her wings free so she could still fly easily.

Her face was set in a serious expression, one all leaders had sported at least once in their life.

A smaller bat flew up to her, managing not to disrupt her aides as it did so.

"We have to go. The snakes are already there and waiting, and the delegation of the monkeys is on the horizon, as is the one of the rabbits. The eagles are already there..."

Machi nodded with calm dignity, informing the smaller bat that they would be there in a moment. Before it left, it flew up and whispered something that had Machi pause for a moment, a look of intrigued curiosity taking over her face for a moment.

"Is that so...Keep it a secret for now, but take measures..."

The other bat nodded, understanding what she wasn't explicitly saying, and disappeared into the bowels of the gigantic building. Within moments, Machi followed with an entourage of dignitaries to meet once more with the snakes and try a last time to negotiate before they were forced to go before the court. At least now she had an ace up her sleeve, she thought with determination.

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Done! And now for the fun part!


	113. Between Legality and Crookery

As I was writing this, I browsed idly on deviantart and found this absolute masterpiece that expressed so well what I'm feeling for my Sakura that I had to share it with you. It's powerful in its simplicity, and I swear it made my heart clench. So here it is, feel free to check it out (get rid of the spaces): blin dsobli nd dot devia ntart dot com/art/ Bli nd-739 45126

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As Machi entered the great hall of Kiritsu, she greeted first the rabbits, who had apparently just arrived. They exchanged pleasantries while the eagles trailed in with their usual poise and calmness. Then came the monkeys and, finally, the snakes, with eyes and tongues of poison.

They all settled around an enormous table designed to be large enough that even the biggest summons could sit down comfortably, which meant that some had chairs with ladders on the side.

The bats and the snakes were sat on opposite sides of the table, with the rabbits, the eagles and the monkeys between them. The largest eagle then asked for silence and said, "This court will be in session shortly. As agreed to by the parties, each party chose one judge, with each judge choosing a third one, which will be me in this matter. Before we begin, I am honour-bound to make you try to reconsider and hold a mediation session. Manda-sama, if you would explain your grief?"

Manda snarled, eyes blazing. "Machi-sama went against the rules in order to save her summoner, resulting in the death of my own. Her summoner should have died then. I want her death, and I want the destitution of Machi-sama as Head of the Bats and the siphoning of her power."

The eagle nodded, then turned to look at Machi.

"What about you, Machi-sama?"

Machi was much calmer than Manda had been, her voice soothing rather than brimming with fiery ire.

"I didst not go against the rules. While 'tis true that my summoner didn't summon me, one of my own died then, giving me reason to appear without being summoned, as thee all knoweth. Chiyoko-chan exploited the loophole. 'Tis no offense to use the Law of Retaliation, and I shall not see her sacrifice be made as such."

Several of the bats nodded in agreement, faces set in stone as the snakes snarled; the mediator screeched, the high-pitched sound making all wince.

"All of you, remain calm and polite, or you will be escorted out of this room. Do I make myself clear?" demanded the eagle, glaring with piercing eyes at both parties.

"I apologize on behalf of mine people," said Machi graciously, inclining her head.

With a sharp nod, the eagle turned to gaze insistently at Manda. Grudgingly, the giant snake apologized with a glare. Satisfied, the eagle gestured for the parties to continue.

"The Law of Retaliation is rarely used. It's archaic, all but forgotten, and it should not have been used in this case. You only thought of it to cover up your mistake after the event," snarled Manda. "Your political agenda cost me my summoner!"

The eagle tsked. "Manda-sama, no accusations, please."

Machi remained impassive, though her tone seemingly brought an arctic breeze along with her words.

"Please doth stop pretending this is about Orochimaru. What thou miss is the number of innocent lives he sacrificed to thee."

From then on, things went south, and after a few hours of repetitive insults and apologies and round after round of arguments that didn't do anything to further the situation, the mediator called for a break. The afternoon didn't turn out to be more productive, and so at the end of the day, the eagle, looking very much unimpressed, declared that they would continue the next day.

-:- 

Anko observed the village, sitting lazily on top of a building. She idly toyed with a kunai, pondering whether or not she would go train alone or simply disturb someone's afternoon plans. As she thought she would rather spoil someone's day, she spotted the perfect target for her boredom.

A mischievous grin grew on her face, the kind of grin that wouldn't be out of place on a psychopath's pock-marked face.

She dropped to the ground silently, relishing in the feel of the wind rushing in her hair and whipping her face.

She landed in front of her unsuspecting victim who let out a screech of fright, dropping her package in surprise. With fast reflexes, Anko grabbed the package and, with an unapologetic sorry and a hand wave, she jogged away with her prize, promising to give it back later. The young girl was left speechless in the middle of the street; by the time she regained her senses, Anko was long gone.

She hadn't gone far, however, but far enough that she wasn't disturbed by anyone when she put her newly-acquired package on the ground.

"Now, let's see what we can do to make this afternoon more interesting..." she muttered with a dangerous smile and a cackle befitting any self-respecting crazy witch.

"Fucking crazy bitch!"

"Tut tut tut," she shushed, peering at her new toy. "You and I are going to have so much fun today."

"I fucking doubt that, crazy bird! I'll bite your fucking fingers off if you touch me!"

Anko smirked. "Not if your mouth is occupied with something else."

Her fingers blurred as they formed hand signs, and as she said "Kuchiyose no jutsu," a small, black snake appeared in her hands, and she wasted no time in plugging the cursing mouth with it.

She then observed her handiwork contentedly, frowning moments later when the snake slithered out with a "yuck" of pure disgust, blood covering its shiny scales as it exited from the severed neck and made the head roll off.

"Don't call on me again for something like this," it hissed before disappearing with a poof of smoke.

Anko frowned unhappily as the severed head cursed in the grass. She put her foot on the back of the head, its curses now muffled by both grass and dirt, and thought aloud to herself.

"Hmmmm...Too small, it just slid off easily. It would be much more fun to see if a head can choke. Which bigger snake could I summon? Lessee...has to be able to fit in your big, dirty mouth, too..." Her eyes shone as an idea struck her. "Aha! I've got just the one!"

A moment later, a slightly bigger snake appeared, looking around in confusion when it sensed that there was no danger around.

"I didn't believe her when she told me..." it muttered with a shake of its head and a sigh of resignation. "What do you—uwah!"

The snake did its best to wriggle free as Anko tried to force it, head first, into a mouth that was, thankfully for the reptile, desperately clenched shut.

"Don't fight me on this, Hidan," ground out Anko as the lone head glared with all its might at her.

"Fucking crazy bitch!" he answered through clenched teeth.

"It's this way or the other way, and believe me, you don't want me to force a snake up your esophagus. Now open wide, boy!"

Hidan looked on in horror as she tried to push the significantly bigger snake into his mouth; said snake didn't look enthused either to be forced down someone's throat.

"Wait! Wait! Waaaaaaait!" it called desperately, its escape attempts unsuccessful.

Anko growled in frustration and lifted the snake until she could look it in the eyes, unimpressed. "What, Mataku-chan?" she demanded. "You're spoiling my fun here. Your sister was much less recalcitrant."

"My apologies, Anko-san, but I have to be elsewhere at the moment, so if you don't mind...I mean, unless you need me for a fight or something...could you let me go already?"

The kunoichi snorted. "Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say. Buck up, man, you're going down the drain, if I may say so." She resumed trying to force the reptile into the head's mouth, but the snake's next words surprised her enough that she let it go.

"It's true! I've got to be there for the trial! I'm one of the witnesses!"

"A trial? What trial?" asked Anko, intrigued, as Hidan eavesdropped, stopping his cursing.

"The snakes against the bats, because of all the debacle about Orochimaru-san and Sakura-sensei and deciding whether or not we kill her, so really, I've got to go, no offense, and—"

"Wait, wait, wait. Rewind a bit there. What do you mean, deciding whether or not you kill her? You have her?" said Anko incredulously.

The snake looked mortified, blushing, and looked away with a single nod of its triangular head.

"What the hell. After all the trouble everyone has gone through to find her, it turns out you guys knew where she was all along."

"Not exactly..." muttered Mataku, but Anko wasn't listening anymore.

"So she's alive, right?" she positively demanded.

"Ano...for now?" answered the snake uncertainly. "Can I go, now?"

"Nope. You've caught a break, but you're coming with me. There's someone I know who'd be really interested in what you have to say."

-:- 

As it so happened, Itachi was looking for a mission to Suna at the Hokage Tower when Anko swaggered in with her prize in hand.

"Hey, wassup, young heir?" she greeted energetically, making a beeline for him.

He looked up, looking significantly more motivated than she had seen him in recent memory.

"I'm looking for a mission in Suna," he answered succinctly.

"Still looking for that gal of yours, eh?"

"Hai. I've got reason to believe she may be in the area."

"Well, forget it, I've got bigger news. I was actually coming to tell the Hokage, but I guess I can tell you first. Your girl? She's not in Suna or anywhere around."

Itachi gave her his full attention; she bent down to whisper in his ear, "She's with the snakes."

He looked at her for a long moment, eyes shining, then nodded succinctly.

"Let's go see Hokage-sama." 

-:- 

"So? What's new?"

Machi sat down in an enormous chair and contemplated her day. She sighed.

"It's going slow. Too slow. The snakes...I've got a feeling they have something up their sleeve."

"My apologies, Hoshigaki-san. I, too, wish this whole affair would go smoother. I do not wish to delay Chiyoko-chan's funeral any longer..."

Kisame snorted.

"For fuck's sake, Machi-sama, I can FEEL her!" he growled. "I'm going crazy staying here without doing anything about it! To know she is just a few rooms away..."

"Calm down," reprimanded Machi sharply. "Such matters take time, and thou cannot let the snakes know of thine presence here. Do not worry so. She hath a protector with her who shan't let anything happen to her so easily."

Kisame growled. "A child! You leave her wellbeing in the hands of a mere child!" he spat viciously.

"Aaah. But doth she not appear to be a child, too? Yet she be more than that, ne?"

"Enough with this. You're just going to rile me up, and since I apparently can't even punch something to relieve my stress, lest I give my presence away, I'll thank you not to think about this anymore." His fists clenched and unclenched periodically, itching to injure something, anything, if only to feel something crack and shatter under his knuckles.

"Thou hath learned several of our techniques to remain invisible, less than a shadow, ne?"

Intrigued, Kisame nodded. Neither he nor Itachi or even Sakura had finished the bats' training, but they had still managed to learn several of their secret techniques.

"Then go see the eagles. Mind readers they are, indeed, and though they are neutral in this matter as arbitrators, they should be able to help if they know Sakura-sensei is here. They shall surely want to see and interrogate her. A little nudge would do us all good."

Kisame looked up and smirked. "Yeah...maybe so. Let's see how secretive I can be, huh?"

Machi smiled secretively to herself.

"Indeed, Hoshigaki-san. Indeed..."

-:- 

Gaara looked up in alarm as the door to the chamber he was in opened brusquely with a bang, clattering loudly against the stone wall. A door that big, that heavy, shouldn't have been so easy to slam open. He crouched over Sakura's prone body, snarling.

Several larger-than-life figures entered the immense room. The snake looked mighty put out and outright protested the intrusion, but the others, the eagle especially, didn't look like they cared for his excuses.

"The fate of this young human is ours to decide, Manda-sama, may I remind you, ever since our court was called out to convene. You had no right to keep her hostage to do with as you please in retaliation. Do not interfere."

The eagle strode in, followed by an equally as gigantic monkey, an enormous rabbit, an immense bat and, of course, the grumpy Manda. All of them wore solemn frowns as the eagle stopped before the two humans and spoke in a gentle if firm voice.

"Little human, do not fear us. We won't harm you or your friend, but I need to assess her condition."

"No one but me will touch her," growled Gaara dangerously. As far as he was concerned, none of these gigantic beasts were trustworthy. Besides, the eagle had clearly said that they would decide Sakura's fate, and that was unacceptable. Only he was allowed to do that; or else why would he have gotten her out of Suna?

"Calm down. I only wish to see how damaged her mind is. It will not hurt her, this I swear to you, young one," replied the eagle calmly.

Gaara merely growled in response, untrusting. 

Inner Sakura blinked lazily as the walls were blown up, debris falling with thunder-like sounds a small ways away. In the dust that rose, a large indistinct figure appeared and approached her. She closed her eyes tiredly as the strange being grabbed her with clawed fingers down her shirt; she was yanked away from the ground, and suddenly there was a breeze in her hair and her lungs weren't filled with the omnipresent green gas anymore. Her head was clearing and her ears weren't ringing anymore.

_Where am I? What's happening?  
_  
She opened her eyes and was met by a most strange sight. She was in the sky. This would be normal, except that there was no sky in Sakura's mind, only a single fortress that, now that she looked down, was getting further and further away. It seemed that Sakura's mindscape, strangely enough, was expanding, even though it should have been impossible for anyone but her to do that.

_What the fuck?!  
_  
She looked up; the strange, borderline painful grip she felt on her shoulders was that of sharp talons, talons that belonged to a "mutterfucking big-ass bird" that shouldn't have rightfully entered the medic's mind.

"Get offa me, you fucking freak with wings!" she hollered, angered that someone had dared to enter uninvited.

There were suddenly twin yellow eyes staring straight at her silently.

"Hullo," she said much more feebly with a sheepish little wave of her hand.

"Don't annoy me while I'm flying, human."

Inner Sakura crossed her arms defiantly.

"Well excuse me for wanting to know what the hell is going on here," she snarled. "Y'know, since this is my job an' all?"

The eagle looked unimpressed and undisturbed.

"What are you, anyway?"

"Merely a summon who knows how to get into someone's head. And you, apparently, are a manifestation of this human's psyche."

"Actually, I'm a double personality who is no longer needed and who now protects this mind. So if you would please get out..." She trailed off, hoping the bird would get the message, but the eagle only flew higher calmly.

"As you can see, this mind is very damaged. Poison can do that, certainly, but it is quite extensive. I'm essentially forcing it to adapt, to enlarge. It will help some. If you are not a representation, you are still a part of this Sakura-sensei's personality. Healing her completely would be quite a chore, one I'm not sure I want to undertake, if I even can do it properly. So I have a proposition for you. What say you to becoming the dominant personality? I can get rid of the toxic miasma and recreate some of this interior fortress, and you could take over while the as-of-now too damaged main personality resides in it."

Inner remained silent, at first shocked, then quite angry with the eagle.

"You little...I'll kill ya if you say any more!" She was positively shaking with rage. "Sakura ain't someone to give up on! She CAN heal and she will, just you wait! And no one will tell me otherwise, you hear me? No one! Not you, not the fucking Hokage, not even Kami-sama! I'll heal her! I'll nurse her back to health! And when she comes back, she'll be so fucking amazing you'll wet your metaphorical pants!"

The beast didn't say anything for a long, long time that stretched on seemingly endlessly as it did lazy circles around Sakura's expanding mind. Inner remained silent as well, sullen, and only observed that the circles were getting larger and larger. A good sign? She sure hoped so.

"Alright," said the beast at length. If you feel that strongly about it, I suppose I'll give it a try. But I do have limitations. If we rule the bats were right, I'll send you off to the slugs to do the rest of the job. Agreed?"

Inner nodded firmly and gave the eagle a defiant glare. "See if _I_ can't do it first!"

-:- 

Kisame waited impatiently. Since Machi had been called by the judges, he hadn't heard of her, and no one had come by to give him news of any kind. He knew the eagle he had seen had known instantly that he had been brought by the bats, but apparently, they didn't care all that much. Probably because they had learned that the snakes had brought not one, but two humans. Who knew mathematics could be useful?

Finally, the door opened and Machi entered, looking very much pleased with herself.

"Success," she said with a smile.

He barely managed to refrain from pumping his fist in the air.

"So? What happened?" he asked eagerly.

"Seishin-sama is a master mindreader. Eagles always look like they can see straight through one's soul, ne? For him, it is more than just an image; he can actually do it. He entered Sakura-sensei's mind and discovered her second personality who apparently refused to take over. The rest we don't know in details, except that he worked for a while in her mind. Outwardly, there is no change, and we shall only see it once she awakeneth."

Kisame nodded and sat down with an exhalation of relief. He ran a hand through his hair, hunched over, and nodded once more.

"Alright," he said, then lifted his head to look at the understanding summon. "Alright. So, when is that?"

"As of now, she sleepeth yet under the poison and Seishin-sama's influence."

"So I have to wait until the poison wanes off?" he asked unhappily.

"Hai. My apologies. And I fear you shall have to wait until you are called to testify to see her."

He was utterly floored at that. "What? Wait? And what's this about testifying? I've never heard anything about that!"

Machi remained calm as she explained that now that Seishin knew that he was alive and easily reachable, he would want to hear his account of the events that had caused such a dissension between the bats and the snakes. Kisame only wanted to maul Manda. Apparently, it was a feeling shared by Gaara, who as of now was pretty much Sakura's appointed protector. He and Sakura had been moved to a new, smaller room, one that no one except for two eagle guards was allowed to enter.

And now the trial could really start.

-:- 

"Seishin-sama, the humans...This is quite unorthodox," said the rabbit.

"This is an unorthodox affair, which is especially why we were called to judge," replied the monkey.

"Indeed. Shall we call on the last one?" said the eagle.

"The Uchiha? Wouldn't he be biased?" worried the rabbit.

"No more than the others, and he _is_ a witness. If we are to bend the rules, we may as well do it all the way."

The rabbit shrugged, the monkey threw its hands in the air in surrender and the eagle nodded.

"Then we are in agreement."

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Seishin: mind, soul, heart, spirit, intention…

Does anyone believe me when I say that looking for a job is such a fucking chore? Anyway, the one good thing about going for interviews in other cities means that I have much time on my hands on the bus, so guess what? I write for you guys! And I'm actually quite pleased with the way this chapter turned out. Sakura will be back soon!


	114. Of Coffee and Lambasting

I know this was long in coming, and I apologize. At least you get a long chapter that will conclude this arc, and we can go on to Sakura's healing. Thought I had abandoned this and forgotten you? Think again!

I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, you guys are awesome and I love you all! This chapter is dedicated to all of you!

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Sarutobi Hiruzen, Hokage of Konohagakure, was looking for a way to get out of doing an enormous pile of paperwork. There was never an end to it, no matter how much he worked on it.

"What a nightmare..." he sighed despondently, looking longingly out the window at the clear sky.

Rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly, he went back to this latest report on commercial routes between Hi no Kuni and Kaze no Kuni. As expected, the Kazekage made things difficult for anyone from his country, but at least he didn't hinder the merchants' trading too much.

In the empty room, a figure suddenly appeared; surprised, the Hokage reacted instantly at the unannounced arrival and a kunai flew through the air. The newcomer reacted just as quickly and lightly jumped to the side to avoid the weapon.

"You know, even if this isn't a social call, that was uncalled for. 'Specially since I was just coming to warn you as a courtesy."

Eyes bulging, Sarutobi, half out of his chair, was frozen on the spot. Since when did monkeys visit him of their own volition?

"What? I...What?"

The monkey approached him slowly with a light sigh of exasperation. It sat down on the desk and looked at the Hokage in the eyes.

"Alright, let me put this simply. Since you are our summoner, I'm the one who was sent here, as my presence wouldn't attract too much attention. We need one of your shinobi. As soon as we're done, we'll give him back to you. Your consent, I'm afraid, is not needed and his presence isn't optional."

Anger filled the old man's heart. "No one, not even a summon of mine, will go anywhere with one of my people. Who do you want, why do you want him and where do you intend to take him?"

The monkey was unfazed. "Nowhere dangerous. We simply need him to testify. He isn't in any danger. As soon as we're done, we'll bring him back, as I've said. Without injuries, mental or physical."

Sarutobi opened his mouth to argue, but the monkey, with a cheerful "Well, see ya!", disappeared out the window.

The Hokage cursed loudly, realizing that the monkey had never told him who it had come to get.

"What a nightmare!"

-:- 

Sasuke, sitting at the table, looked up from his breakfast to glance at his older brother who, after a myriad of secretive, despondent sighs, left his mostly-unfinished breakfast on the table and returned upstairs to curl on his futon. He knew because that was what Itachi had been doing for days. There had been a moment, nearly a week ago, when he had been excited, but that excitement had quickly abated, dashed by the Hokage when he had refused to follow Anko's lead. Truth be told, he hadn't been much help from the beginning, but it appeared that he could have done something—Sasuke wasn't privy to the details—to help this time. Or Anko, for that matter.

As Itachi disappeared into the depths of the house, Sasuke turned back to his mother busy preparing a cup of coffee for his father who was already working in his study.

"Okaa-san...Aniki's being weird again..." muttered the dark-haired child with a pout. He didn't like it when his older brother ignored him, be it on purpose or not.

"Let him be, Sasuke-chan. Your brother is on the most trying kind of quest there is. He needs time with himself."

He frowned and whined. "But he's being all mopey again! And what quest? I thought he wasn't on a mission at the moment."

"It's a self-appointed one. One about love." She smiled at the grimace Sasuke made. He didn't like love, which may be due in part to his young age and general disregard for the female populace and, most likely, the fangirls' interest in him.

"I don't understand what's so great about love," he grouched.

"That's because you haven't experienced it yet." With an indulgent smile, Mikoto sat down with a smoking hot cup of coffee and slid it across the table in a clear gesture for her son to take it. "Love is like coffee."

Intrigued, Sasuke peered into the cup, but all that stared back at him was a hot dark brown liquid. At his mother's urging, he tasted it, but the sip he took made him grimace at the bitter taste and the scalding it gave his tongue.

"I...don't understand," he admitted.

"Love, my son, is like coffee. At first, it's bitter yet scalding hot, then it warms you up inside and makes you giddy with unused energy. And at the end, it leaves you cold and empty, and craving more of that fix, and so you go back to that special person, that person who is your fix, and moments accumulate between you two, moments of tenderness and longing, and you feel cold when you're not with your loved one...until one day, you grow used and bored of the routine, and you find a new fix. Or else...or else it's what young girls like to call true love, and the flame never dies out."

Sasuke, who had been suspended to her words, scoffed. "I wonder why anyone would ever want to go through that."

With a lighthearted little laugh, Mikoto reached out to ruffle his hair. "Ah, you'll understand one day when you fall in love too. Who knows? It may happen sooner than you think."

"Not likely," he muttered under his breath. She only smiled secretly with dancing eyes. 

Itachi had been staring straight at the wall for a long time when something came in through the window. He didn't turn around, merely told whoever it was to leave him alone.

"You sure about that? I thought you'd be more enthusiastic about finally getting to see your beloved. Were we wrong about that?"

The Uchiha whirled around to stare, wide-eyed, at a snickering monkey sitting on his window ledge.

"You!"

The monkey, with a wicked smile, made a two-fingered wave at him.

"So, interested?"

"Do you even need to ask?" uttered Itachi after a long moment of astonished silence. "When are we leaving?"

The monkey hopped down from the windowsill with a genuine smile, crossing its arms behind its head.

"I've already alerted the Hokage, so he won't be surprised. We can leave whenever, but the sooner the better. If you remember well, time doesn't pass the same way where I come from."

"Indeed," murmured Itachi, "indeed...I'll be ready in a minute. I'll tell my mother that I'm going, and she'll relay the message to the Hokage if he asks about my whereabouts."

Itachi was an efficient packer. Within moments, he was ready to go, but he hesitated to go out of his room in case the monkey simply left during his absence.

"Go on, go on," said the monkey, waving him off and making itself comfortable on Itachi's bed. "No worries, I'll wait for you."

With a last anxious glance at the monkey, the Uchiha finally left the room.

"Ah, young ones...No trust at all..."

Mikoto smiled to herself when her eldest son, looking as excited as he was ever going to get, announced to her that he was leaving to bring Sakura back and that he wouldn't return without her.

-:- 

The sun rose over the horizon; within moments, the court filled with summons of all kinds. As soon as everyone was seated, Manda and Machi came in and took seats on opposite sides of the room. Then, the three arbitrators strode in, dressed in cream and blue robes, and settled on the dais at the head of the room.

"Let us begin," said Seishin with a sweeping gesture of his wings before sitting down and waiting for Manda to get the ball rolling.

As expected, the snake didn't have to try very hard to appear pissed off at Machi, at the situation, and at the whole world in general. Maybe he was just prissy by nature.

He made a long and tedious speech about his grievances, seemingly not realizing that he was boring his audience the longer he kept going. Eventually, fortunately, he closed his mouth and let Machi explain the gist of her position. Her speech, thankfully, she kept short and to the point, soon sitting back down and letting Seishin take over.

"With a last remainder that anything lawful is for us three to decide," said the eagle, gesturing to the rabbit and the monkey sitting on either side of him, "you may begin to interrogate your witnesses. Keep in mind that we arbitrators may ask them any question we see fit to get to the bottom of this affair. Manda-sama, as the petitioner, you may begin."

"Thank you, Seishin-sama. I call Mataku-san to the stand!"

From one of the first rows, a small snake slithered forward and went into the witness stand, which was little more than an elevated platform with a large cushion on it for the witness to sit down comfortably.

Once he settled on the purple cushion, the coloured snake waited for the questions to come.

Manda had him identifying Sakura, who was sitting in the front row, lost in her own world, then asked him a few generic questions about his limited interactions with the medic. Mataku recounted calmly the episode during which he had acted as a blindfold for Sakura and the various interactions she had had with the people of Konoha. He depicted her as a spirited girl who had a quick, sharp wit about her, an equally as sharp tongue and a sarcastic kind of humour. He made a fairly reliable rendition of her, recounting anecdotes that allowed everyone to get a good idea of who Sakura was as a person, flaws and all.

His testimony was neither for nor against Sakura, but it was clear that Manda wished he had said something to undermine her and Machi. Afterward, he was interrogated by Machi, and then recounted what he thought of Sakura and her present state.

"Well, she's...not the same girl I knew back in Konoha. Her mind's elsewhere, if not broken. It's...it's sad. Just sad."

Machi didn't interrogate him further once her turn came, but Seishin did.

"Would you say this girl is the same one you knew?"

"Definitely not as she is now."

"Thank you, no more questions."

Mataku slithered away.

This time, it was a bat that was called to the stand, a bat that had been present when Machi had heard the news of Sakura's situation and Chiyoko's sacrifice. Calmly, the bat relayed the sequence of events and Machi's words and actions, and Manda got to dissect every one of them in search of a flaw, of something he could use against Machi. He didn't have much success in this endeavour.

It was clear that Manda was getting frustrated. Things were not going his way.

Seishin skillfully let Manda prove his point as far as was reasonably possible, as Manda was prone to be excessive in his questioning and demands. When Manda was done, or deemed done in this instance, Seishin turned to Machi.

"Machi-sama, we will adjourn for a break, then you will expose your pretenses. We'll meet back here in an hour. Dismissed!"

The three judges swept off with majestic poise. Once they were gone, Machi and Manda followed, then everyone else. Sakura was escorted out by a monkey who made sure she wasn't bothered by anyone on her way out.

-:- 

Itachi looked up when the door opened. The youth was waiting for some news; he had been waiting since the beginning of the process and he was tired of it. To his satisfaction, the one who entered his room was Machi. The great bat halted any question he might have asked with a shake of her head.

"Let me speak first. Things are going...not bad. After the recess, thou shalt be called to the stand to testify about the night thou faced Orochimaru."

"Alright. That night is engraved in my memory. My testimony should corroborate that of your bats, I think. When will I be called?"

"It shan't be long now, but I have someone here who shall accompany thee. I daresay thou shalt appreciate it."

Curious, Itachi peeked around Machi who, with a secretive smile, disappeared out the door. And in the open door stood a person he had never thought he'd see again.

"Hoshigaki-san?! How?" he exclaimed, astonished, once he regained his voice.

"Heya, kiddo. You grew a lot since I've last seen you. It's a bit of a long story, but when I managed to get out of that sand coffin, everyone was gone and since I was injured, I stayed in the area to rest and heal. Eventually, I wandered off in search of Chibi-sensei and managed to snag a bat. I learned about the process and had the bat take me here, where Sakura was apparently taken in the meantime."

Itachi smiled slightly.

"I guess you really are tough to kill."

"Ha!" scoffed Kisame, crossing his hands behind his head. "I'm a genuine badass."

"It appears you've been here longer than me. Have you seen Sakura-sensei?" asked Itachi, desperate for news of the elusive pinkette.

"I've caught a glimpse of her. She's...damaged." He scratched the back of his head, sighing. "I mean...I don't know what happened to her exactly, what the snake bastard did to her, but the bats haven't been able to heal her completely. I know the eagle, Seishin-san, took a look at her mind and apparently managed to do some good, but it's not enough."

Itachi took it in thoughtfully and eventually nodded. "Once we get back, we have to get her to Tsunade-sama. She'll know how to heal her."

Kisame scratched the back of his head uneasily. "Yeah, about that...that may prove to be...somewhat difficult."

"Eh?"

"See, chibi-sensei didn't come here alone. Someone was with her."

The Uchiha barely dared to ask who; he knew he wouldn't like the answer.

"The jinchuuriki brat from Suna."

A breath left Itachi's lips slowly as he digested what that meant. After all, Gaara was known for being blood-hungry pretty much all the time AND being extremely possessive of what he deemed his. Such as Sakura.

-:- 

While Itachi was interrogated by first Machi, then Manda, his eyes stayed glued to Sakura's idle form. Clearly, she wasn't much aware of what was going on around her. He answered the questions almost absentmindedly as he observed the girl, noting how utterly young she seemed. It was disconcerting. Of course, he knew that time didn't pass the same way in the summons' realm and that if she didn't heal herself regularly to expand her cells, she would remain looking like a child, but it was the way she acted that truly disturbed him. Much like a five-year-old, she was off in her own world, occasionally tapping what was left of her fingers on the barrister in front of her.

His short nails made crescent-shaped bleeding marks on his palms. A few drops dropped to the ground in a crimson trail, forming a little pond on the floor.

As Manda's tongue came out, like it did regularly for all snakes, he smirked, sensing the blood in the air. The trial was not going the way he wanted it to be, but at least he could take pleasure in Itachi's pain.

The Uchiha heir, done with his testimony, was given the order to stay in the trial room so he could be counter-interrogated if necessary. To his pleasure, there were several rows on either side of the room that were reserved for witnesses. As a witness of Machi's, he had to sit on her side of the room—and a seat was suddenly vacated, conveniently, next to Sakura. He didn't know who to thank for that, but he gratefully sat down next to her and, while listening to the goings on around them, focused most of his attention on her.

He didn't dare take one of her fragile hands in his, for fear of hurting her; besides, he didn't know how she would have reacted—or how he would have, if she had shied away from him. Denying himself any physical contact with her was impossible, however. His thigh brushed against her, sending warmth running through his veins from the simple point of contact. When she leaned against him, he stilled completely, frozen by his raging emotions, emotions that rampaged in his chest with a ferocity that astounded him.

He was the calm, rational one; she was the one who could feel a myriad of emotions in the blink of an eye. Yet she was the one who appeared at peace now, while he could feel emotion after emotion running through him. Relief, affection, worry, fear, relief again, and most of all, underlying it all, love.

-:- 

Kisame's testimony was much less smooth-sailing than Itachi's. For one, he didn't even try to keep a poker face. And when Manda interrogated him, he outright smirked when recounting Orochimaru's demise, clearly delighting in the barely suppressed rage that the great snake displayed. However, this was no time for a physical attack, and so Kisame could freely bait Manda and play mind games. And Manda had no choice but to restrain himself and let the man leave to take a seat on Sakura's other side when he was done.

Itachi could almost physically feel the man's satisfaction as he sat down with a smirk and a cheerful wave at Manda.

"Is it wise to antagonize him?" asked Itachi quietly while the trial continued.

"Probably not," replied the blue man with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, uncaring of danger as always. "But you know that once we get out of here, he won't be able to do a thing. After all, he can't come to our world unless he's summoned, and no simple serpent will be able to bite me or catch me unawares."

Itachi allowed himself a small nod of impressed acknowledgement at the other male. The whole case was founded on the fact that Manda argued that Machi had gone to their world without being summoned. If Manda dared to do so after all the fuss he had caused, he would not be let go lightly. "Very clever, Hoshigaki-san."

"Heh. I try." But despite the modest words, the twinkle in the shark man's eyes and his toothed grin were a clear indicator that he was rather proud of himself.

But there was something dangerous about this case, something that both ninja had overlooked. After all, Manda had referred the matter to an arbitrator, not a simple court, which meant that no jurisprudence could arise of this case. And this, in turn, meant that Manda was much freer to act once everything was wrapped up than either ninja thought.

But that was not to say, either, that a transgression on Manda's part would go unpunished, and the snake knew it. No, Manda would have to be subtle about it if he tried anything.

For now, however, Manda would wait patiently, eyes riveted on a disabled Sakura.

-:- 

Gaara was a possessive person by nature, and that trait of character had only been exacerbated by the tenant in his head.

As such, when Itachi noticed that there seemed to be a faint shimmer about Sakura's skin, he was not surprised, upon prodding, to find a thin layer of sand coil around his fingers for a moment, then recede back into the layer that protected the blind girl.

He looked up, saw Manda's eyes trained on that very spot, and gave the snake a meaningful glance. Though vindictive, he was not temerarious. He was not stupid and knew when to cut his losses. Reluctantly, the snake, looking as though he had swallowed a lemon, nodded and looked away, miffed and disappointed: point taken.

All things came to a conclusion as, after a few days of aggressive comments and palpable emotions, Seishin returned alone from the room in which the arbitrators had retired to deliberate. Face set into a neutral if serious countenance, he calmly announced that in light of the circumstances, Machi had been within her rights to act as she had done, even if the rule she had acted upon had not been put to use in decades.

Manda was suitably irate and made more so when Seishin announced that no appeal was available as this was an arbitration court of law. He slithered away with a glare, muttering that this was not the end of it.

"May I remind you, Manda-sama, that if you act in any way against the decision we took, you will be severely reprimanded?"

At Seishin's words, the snake tensed, then continued on his way silently.

"Think he's gonna lay low?" murmured Kisame softly.

"I doubt it," replied Itachi, "but I hope so."

The monkey who had been guarding Sakura gestured for them to get up.

"Come on, we have to leave before the others."

"Where are we going this time?" asked Kisame, hoisting the careless Sakura in his arms.

"There is a boy who is waiting for her to come back, and promising him we would bring her back to him as soon as the ordeal was over with was the only way Seishin-sama managed to get him to hand her over to us."

"And so we have another possessive person to deal with..."

"As if I'm gonna let him have Sakura after all the trouble I had to find her again!"

"Wise men sometimes have to retreat to better advance further on..."

"Stop sounding so damn preaching, Uchiha, it doesn't suit you. I know you feel the same way."

"Indeed. But with you there, I don't have to say it myself."

Kisame faltered, then jogged to keep up with the younger male who now sported the faintest trace of a smirk. "You cheeky little...!"

-:- 

Seishin was called by an urgent voice before the room had even been fully vacated.

"Seishin-sama! There's trouble!"

_When is there none?_ he thought rather cynically. Outwardly, he said: "Very well. What is it?"

The smaller eagle panted, feathers ruffled and eyes worried, "The demon child! He refuses to relinquish his hold on the medic, and the other humans are reacting very badly! He's antagonizing them, and our guards, too! Please put a stop to the commotion, Seishin-sama!"

The great eagle bristled in anger. Humans weren't supposed to be in their world in the first place, and they wouldn't even be decent enough to behave?! He had been lenient, had accepted their presence courteously for the duration of the proceedings, had looked the other way when Kisame had invited himself and revealed Manda's actions, but enough was enough! If they couldn't act responsibly, then he wouldn't put up with their presence any longer.

"Come with me, Kaori-san. Enough is enough. We're booting them out of this place."

And as the door flew off its hinges as he approached the demon-child's room, he stalked in, anger burning in his eyes, and roared, "Out, the lot of you! Out, or I'll force you out of this realm myself!"

Three heads snapped in his direction. Three pairs of eyes widened. Then four bodies disappeared and all was calm once more.

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Whew, I'm finally out of that arc AND it's turned out the way I wanted it to! You don't know how glad I am. Thanks for all of your encouraging reviews, they kept me going these last months, as RL has pretty much kicked my ass so bad I didn't have enough energy left to write. I'm mentally exhausted, but I haven't forgotten you, and, bit by bit, I've finally managed to finish this for you guys!


	115. The Mountains

I'm aliiiiiive! A bit depressed, but otherwise well. Thanks for the reviews, everyone, you guys always make my day! I hope you'll like this chapter. It's a bit of a filler, but there are important things in there. And there's a character in here I'm pretty sure you'll be happy to see.

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"Hadn't we agreed to do this peacefully?"

Kisame tensed at Itachi's outburst and looked at him from the corner of his eyes, making sure to stay aware of Gaara's movements.

"That was before the guy tried to hack off my arm!" he retorted angrily, hands clenching as blood dripped down his arms from his biceps. That Gaara had attacked him just for holding Sakura grated at his nerves.

Itachi, meanwhile, observed their surroundings. A gust of cold wind made him shiver, eyes blinking as snow blinded him momentarily. Under other circumstances, he would have appreciated the amazing view of the mountain range, but there were more important things to consider at present. Aka: they were all freezing to death, as none of them were dressed suitably for subzero temperatures.

"Shouldn't we take this elsewhere?" he suggested, observing Sakura's blue lips and chattering teeth.

Gaara merely hugged Sakura closer.

Kisame tensed, preparing to attack.

"Don't make that face," he grouched at the Uchiha.

"What face?"

"_That_ face," he continued, annoyed, as Itachi remained seemingly calm and unaffected.

"That's my normal face," said the Uchiha impassively. "Should I change it?"

Seeing he was ready to perform a henge, Kisame stopped him swiftly. He had no intention of seeing what the guy's mind could conjure up. Besides, they still had to deal with the little blighter who clearly wanted more than just to keep them at bay.

"Fucking hell. Will you stop that?!" he yelled at the redhead, dodging a tendril of sand that would have pierced his stomach.

Seeing that Kisame was in no mood to parlay with the jinchuuriki, Itachi took it upon himself to maintain a relative status quo.

"Gaara-san, please stop this. We will not try to take her from you so please stop trying to kill us. Kisame-san is sorry for his actions."

Kisame, while being rather stubborn, was no fool. He understood quite clearly the message the Uchiha was trying to convey. This was neither the place nor time.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. We'll kill each other later, promise."

Gaara looked at him suspiciously even as he put his hands up in surrender.

"She'll freeze to death at this rate. May I suggest we adjourn this riveting conversation?" asked Itachi pointedly.

Gaara narrowed his eyes and gave him a long look, then looked down at Sakura. "Alright. But try to approach her and I'll kill you, no questions asked."

Itachi breathed a sigh of relief. "Fair enough. We won't do anything. We'll have to find shelter soon, night is coming. We have to find a cave or dig one in the snow."

As they departed, Kisame asked, not really expecting an answer, "Hey, think the birds'll come and get us once they realize they've dumped us in the middle of nowhere?" 

-:- 

The Hokage's head snapped up as a presence manifested itself near the windows.

"YOU!"

The monkey waved sheepishly. "Hey. Ano...I guess there's something I should tell you."

The old man's tone became cold and hard, that of a leader whose people's lives had been compromised. "Talk."

"Well...You know how we took the Uchiha heir to our realm and all? He wasn't the only one there, actually." The monkey scratched its head, daring a glance at the Hokage whose countenance, if anything, had become even stonier. "So...What I'm trying to say is, well, he and the other humans kinda made a mess and angered Seishun-sama, so he booted them out, and they could be preeeeetty much anywhere. So, yeah. That's about it. Guess I'll be going then."

In a moment, the monkey had disappeared, but this time, Sarutobi Hiruzen was not to be defeated. He had had enough of summons appearing when they wanted to and disappearing when they wanted to. He bit his thumb, smeared his blood on the ground and yelled, "Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

A new monkey appeared, looking at him curiously. "What can I do for you, Hokage-sama?"

"A monkey just told me Uchiha Itachi was sent back in this realm but didn't know where he could be. If I am to send a team after him, I need more information."

The monkey scratched the top of its head, seeming a bit disinterested or rather, unconcerned. "Sure. What do you want to know? Mind you, I can't guarantee I know the answers you seek."

"Why was Uchiha Itachi taken in the first place?"

"I guess now the matter's been dealt with, there's no harm in telling you. The guy was taken because we needed his testimony. Now that the trial is over, he was supposed to be sent back, but...he angered Seishun-sama, so he and the others were sent away, and Seishun-sama didn't tell anyone where. He was that angry, you see."

"So no one knows where he can be?" asked the Hokage with a frown.

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say he and the others are at a very inhospitable place."

Something ticked him off about those words. "Others? Which others?"

"Of course, the cause of all this: the bats' summoner, Sakura-sensei. Then, wind and water which together create tempests: Gaara-san of Sunagakure and Hoshigaki-san of Kirigakure. Wherever they are, they must surely be fighting still."

Sarutobi Hiruzen massaged his temples tiredly. "For the love of...why, oh why do the gods torture me so?"

Should he hope they hadn't been sent in an enemy territory? Or was that futile, considering Sakura's knack for getting herself and others into trouble?

"I guess I can at least send word for my teams to keep an eye out for them out there," he sighed.

"Good thinking. I'm very impressed."

"Shut up, this is all you guys' fault in the first place."

-:- 

The little group was fortunate in that it took little time for them to find a cave in which to rest. Gaara used his sand to make a barrier at the entrance to cut off the icy wind, leaving only a small hole at the top so that there would be fresh air coming in, and Itachi used a small fire jutsu to light a campfire near the entrance. Meanwhile, Kisame toured outside to make sure to erase their tracks and see if there was any sign of life in the vicinity.

Afterward, they huddled close to the fire, discussing their next move.

"So. What next?" said Kisame, warming his feet by the fire.

"Obviously, the first thing we should do is get down this mountain. Tomorrow if we can. The base of the mountain is far, but we can carry sensei down. A cherry blossom won't fare long in the cold of winter."

Gaara stayed silent but nodded in approval.

"I think we all agree that she needs the help of someone highly qualified. So I see three options: we take her to Konoha, to the medical village, or to Tsunade-hime. We have to decide now."

"Not Konoha. I can't go there and if its medics are anything like Suna's, they won't help any."

Itachi stared at Gaara and nodded seriously. "Fair enough. So. Either the medical village or Tsunade-hime."

Kisame wiggled his toes. They were starting to thaw. "I say we try to find Tsunade-san. She's probably our best bet."

Itachi sighed. "Probably so. But she will not be easy to find. And I can't afford to stay away from Konoha forever, especially if we encounter Konoha nin."

"You're fortunate to have me on board, then. I'll be able to easily enter casinos."

Gaara grunted.

"Oh, and if we see the Toad Sannin, I've got a few questions for him. I'd like to get Samehada back and he can probably help."

He looked into the fire wistfully, missing his beloved sword. Sure, he had sacrificed his sword to save them all, but he'd really like to get it back.

"No worries, I won't drag you back to the desert with me when the time comes."

There were a few moments of silence, the three staring at the fire wistfully, hoping for better days. At length, Itachi spoke up.

"Should I...try to make her Inner self come out? Apparently, Seishun-sama managed to get in contact with her in her mind."

Gaara and Kisame's reaction was instantaneous. Two heads snapped up, eyes wide and expectant.

Itachi stifled a secretive smile.

"Then I will take a look."

He carefully approached the female. In a moment, he was inside Sakura's broken mind.

He found himself in a place even stranger than the first time he had entered her mind. The ruins of Sakura's fortress were invaded by toxic green miasma, but neither she nor Inner Sakura were to be found. However, that they had disappeared completely was impossible. As he wondered where they could be, he looked further into the ruins, but there really was nothing to be seen, and the toxic fumes that he disturbed with every step were starting to get to him.

"Where is she?" he wondered. "Where are you, Inner Sakura?"

"Hey, you!"

The call came from high up, sounding so distant it was almost an echo. He looked up, and a rope ladder fell on his face.

"Is that an island?" he wondered, amazed. There was no sun in this place, just a strange ambient luminosity, so there hadn't been any shadow for him to guess there could be something as impossible as an island floating in the air.

"Come on up, you idiot!"

He couldn't see clearly at that distance, but he hazarded a guess as to who his interlocutor was.

"Inner Sakura-san?" he called out.

"Hai! Come on, hurry!"

He quickly climbed up the ladder, his arms on fire by the time he finally stepped over the edge of the floating island.

Inner was sitting on a boulder, leveling a look at him as he climbed up. He panted, on his knees, but smiled at her in relief.

"Inner-san, I'm glad you are alright," he said as she hopped down from the boulder.

"I bet you are. Come, I'll take you where you really want to go."

He followed the woman down a path into the forest, heart pounding as they finally found themselves in a clearing. The path went around a large pond, up to a small shack on the other side. It was barely standing, did not even have a door, but it seemed to him like a palace at the moment, for inside he could see a frail body and pink hair.

He ran inside, dropping to his knees next to the sleeping figure, and gently caressed her face. Then he turned to Inner Sakura, who was standing in the open doorway.

"Both of you look pale and fragile. Are you alright now?"

"We're not exactly great, but we're a bit better than we were, all things considered. The eagle helped me create this island, and I've been taking care of rebuilding things since then. Whenever she sleeps, I pull her here so she can sleep at ease, and tend to her, but we need some outside help. Can you do something?"

He nodded, getting up. "We'll take you to Tsunade-hime, but if you come out, do you think you could heal yourself?"

Inner glanced at Sakura's hands and looked away with a grimace. "With such hands..."

"I understand...But there are still some things you can do with chakra control, ne?"

"I suppose..."

"Actually, I came here to find you. Could you take over for a moment? Gaara-san and Kisame-san want to see you. You can appease them then."

Inner Sakura sighed and shrugged. "Sure, why not."

And suddenly, Itachi was back in the cave. It was a bit disorienting, but he got his bearings quickly and looked curiously at Sakura's inert body. He held his breath in anticipation; finally she stirred.

"Okay, bitches, I'm out. Now whaddaya want me to say?"

At the callous words, Itachi chuckled despite himself, the sound coming across as a muffled snort—everyone looked at him, but it was Inner Sakura who spoke out of Sakura's mouth.

"Well, that was graceful."

"Not very Uchiha-like," teased Kisame.

"So, anyway, now that I'm out here 'n all, what next? It takes energy to come out, and I don't have a lot to spare."

It was Gaara who spoke next, intrigued. "You...You are her, and yet you're not. What are you?"

"This voice...Gaara-san. Right?"

"Hai."

"Boy, I've been out for the count for a long time...I'm Inner Sakura. Usually, I'm in Sakura's mind, acting like a guardian, but I've been out of commission for a while. Pleasure ta meetcha," she said with a two-fingered salute. "You guys taking me to Tsunade-sama, right?"

"Yeah. "

"Good decision. She'll be able to help, I'm sure."

She got on her hands and knees and crawled closer to the fire. Gaara stopped her wandering, for she would have burned herself, and made her sit down as close as was safe to it.

"Rest," he said simply.

She smiled slightly bitterly. "Thanks. I can't gauge distances anymore. Can't sense where we are either. Where are we? Why is it so cold away from the fire?"

"Well...We're not quite sure where we are, exactly," replied Kisame. "But we're on a mountain range and we're planning to go down tomorrow."

"Great! By the way, congrats on living. I'm sure Sakura'll be thrilled to know you've survived."

She reached out blindly and gave him a congratulatory hug, much to Gaara's vocal displeasure. She clucked her tongue at him in reprobation, shutting him up if only because he was surprised at her audacity.

"I haven't been aware of many things recently, but come to think of it, why aren't you in Suna, Gaara-san?" she asked curiously.

"I smuggled you out," he answered simply.

"Oooh, this promises to be a good story! Get me up to date!"

He did so in a clipped voice, bringing her back to his side, though she poked his side unhappily, and she got to wondering about the people who had been implicated, back in Suna.

"Does anyone have paper? I need to write a letter."

8888888888888888888

The next chapter should be a bit of a medley about everyone left behind since I gotta tie loose ends, but the story will progress forward too. Can't wait to write Tsunade and Jiraiya again!

So, it wasn't too bad, was it?


	116. Finding Tsunade

Hello, everyone! I'm feeling much better this week, and had much inspiration to write this. Hope you like! Thanks for the reviews, you guys always make my day! And now, read on!

888888888

Going down the mountain was no small affair. They had expected clear skies, but during the night, strong winds picked up and by morning, the mountain was overtaken by a snowstorm.

They didn't dare stay another day in the cave, however, for they had no food supplies and the temperature wasn't raising any.

Gaara had initially wanted to carry Sakura down, but he had to admit that he was too small to carry her and reluctantly handed her over to Kisame.

He may not have been dressed for wintry temperatures, but he draped her in his upper clothes, enduring the cold bite of the wind and snow, and protected her as best he could from the elements. His large frame helped stave off the wind, and his chest radiated enough heat that she didn't freeze, huddling closer.

They could scarcely see anything as they walked, none of them daring to speak for fear that they caused an avalanche, and stayed within close range of one another, frostbite a very real threat.

At the base of the mountain, a forest gave them some cover, and they stopped for a breather.

"I'm officially a walking icicle. I can't wait to get out of here," grouched Kisame.

"I want shelter," seconded Gaara.

"Yester night, I glimpsed lights into the distance. We can't see them today because of the snowstorm, but if we go in that direction," he said, pointing somewhere to his left, "we should eventually get to a village. Let's run before we really freeze to death."

The group set out at a fast pace, zooming past trees and boulders, and heaved a sigh of relief as the village finally appeared. It was small, but they had the good fortune to find lodgings at the local inn.

The owner eyed them warily as they entered, but they were more interested in the warm fire burning in the hearth than in his worldly possessions. They huddled close, rubbing their limbs to get circulation back in them.

From behind his counter, the owner, a middle-aged man, observed them carefully. He did not want any trouble. As far as he could see, the group was not dressed right for the weather. Their clothes, or what remained of them in this case, were actually more suited to the hottest days of summer. He wondered why they were dressed this way. Were they runaways? If so, he didn't want them in his inn. They would undoubtedly be followed by those people they had run from.

Even so, he observed their actions, noting that their concern was mainly focused on the lone female of the group. If they couldn't pay up, he would have them leave her with him as payment. He was sure that in a few years, people would pay good money for a night with a girl with exotic pink hair. At least, that was what he thought until he came closer and saw the scars that marred her and the various body parts she lacked.

Psh. Waste of perfectly good flesh. Her master must have been really angry at her to punish her like that.

"Where are you travelers from?" he asked, lighting a lamp on a table near them.

"Here and there," answered the black-haired male vaguely, further consolidating the idea that they were runaways in his mind.

"Will you stay long?" he asked cautiously.

"Just for the night. One room will be enough if there are two beds in it," answered the same male as before.

"Certainly, good sirs. Please pay in advance for the food and lodgings, and I'll have my wife prepare your room while you warm up."

The boy reached into his pockets and handed him a few coins, then waved him off.

They rubbed their frozen bodies contentedly, whispering things he couldn't hear as he ladled stew into four bowls. They stopped talking when he came near and put the bowls on the table, but diligently sat down to eat. The redhead fed the girl slowly, and even from where he stood, back at the counter, he could see that there was something not quite right with her. He supposed the trauma from losing her eyes and a few fingers had made her lose her sanity.

In the morning, when he woke up, the group had disappeared. There was no sign left of their passage, except there wasn't any stew left in the cauldron where there should have been a few servings.

He wondered, in the following days, if there would be people stopping by, to ask for their whereabouts, but no one ever came to inquire about them, and in time, he forgot that they had ever been there. 

-:- 

"Look, we need new clothes. Ours are tattered, and made for summer, not winter. There's a perfectly fine shop just over there. We stop by, buy a few coats and boots, and leave. Simple."

Gaara looked severely unimpressed at Kisame's plan.

"How did you ever survive as a nuke-nin?" he asked dryly.

"Shut up, you pest."

Itachi rubbed his temples tiredly. "Kisame-san has a point, but Gaara-san isn't wrong either. There are shinobi stationed in this town, and our clothes will surely attract their attention. Let's perform a henge, enter the shop, and leave as quickly and quietly as we can."

They did so, making sure not to encounter any ninja on their way. Fortunately, Itachi had enough money to pay for their new clothes, in which they were infinitely more comfortable, but keeping Sakura from blowing their cover was a hard task. Eventually, though, they managed to leave the shop, steering Sakura along, and found lodgings at a small inn.

From there, it was decided that Kisame would go to the local casino, Gaara would stay in their room with Sakura, and Itachi would hunt and exchange his preys for money at the market. 

-:- 

Any ninja with good eyes could easily predict the outcome of a roll of dice. Unfortunately, one had to bet beforehand, which explained how people like Tsunade could lose time after time.

So after betting a few times so as not to be suspicious, Kisame sat at the bar and watched carefully, spotting the most unlucky man he could find. Time after time, he could predict the mousy man would lose, and with each loss, the man turned more desperate, until he went to the bar to spend what little money he had on booze to drown out his sorrows. And that is when the shark approached the poor little fish.

"Tough luck today, man?" he asked detachedly with a commiserating smile. Thank the gods he was under a henge or the man would have fled the moment he glimpsed his razor-sharp teeth.

"Tell me about it. I was so sure I'd win big this time, too. I'm sure the dealer was cheating."

So was Kisame, but that was usually the case in such places. If the man was stupid enough to expect otherwise, that was his problem. Still, he nodded in assent and lifted his glass in a toast.

"I hear you, man. No luck for me today either. But hey, there's always someone who sucks worse than us, ne?" he said lightly.

The other man's eyes looked up from his drink. "Yeah? Like who? 'Cause with the way I've been going, my wife's gonna smack me around today, too."

Kisame smirked internally. Hook, line and sinker. "Well, there's always the Legendary Sucker. Apparently, no one's more unlucky than her."

The mousy man's eyes lit up as he laughed. "Got that right! She was here three weeks ago, and let me tell you, that night, even I was lucky! I felt for her, losing all that money, but hey, I managed to win a few hundred yens for myself that day. Not bad, eh?"

Kisame took a gulp of his drink—hard, like he was—and said, "Any chance she's still around? Might as well take the chance to win a few yens myself if I run into her."

His interlocutor shook his head, finishing his drink. "Nah, left after that. Heard she's goin' south. One o' my buddies said he saw her heading that way, but I don't know where she was going. Not sure if she knew herself."

Kisasme shrugged, finishing off his drink too. "Oh well," he said disinterestedly as he got to his feet, "never mind, then. Not like that's gonna keep me from gambling anyway, right?"

"Hear, hear!" toasted the other with his empty glass as he retreated.

So. South it was. How fortunate it was that Tsunade was a beautiful blonde lady with big breasts. Everyone remembered her—or her fists.

-:- 

Tsunade may have been drunk, but she was still a kunoichi. The man who sauntered up to her was definitely not a civilian, no matter how much he tried to pass off as one.

She eyed him suspiciously as he leaned down and murmured, "Hey there, pretty lady. Wanna play with me?"

She caught him by the wrist and threw him bodily away from her before he could press a senbon between her ribs. The door broke clear off its hinges as he was thrown into the street, and the daylight spilled into the smoky, dark room. Four figures blocked the light, forming shadows across the floor, and she leapt up, ready for a fight. Her blood was singing in her veins as she cracked her knuckles warningly.

"Come and get me, bitches!" she yelled, brandishing a glowing fist as people fled the establishment like mice. 

-:- 

They tracked Tsunade rather easily, the woman leaving a trail of happy, richer people behind her and a few bruised male egos. From town to town, they got closer and closer to their quarry until at last, they happened upon a lively town that, unfortunately for themselves, had quite a few gambling houses. Deciding to lay low, they chose to first find a small inn out of the way before going in search of the Sannin.

Walking down the main street, they tried to get out of the way of trouble, Kisame posing as the three youths' mentor.

As they crossed a secondary street, a man crashed through the doors of what appeared to be a gambling house.

"That's definitely her, no doubt about it," remarked Kisame calmly as they jogged in direction of the groaning man. He kicked him in the head, and the man flopped down, unconscious, as the four walked up to the gaping entrance of the seedy gambling house.

Everyone had fled, leaving only the woman they had been looking for brandishing a fist in their direction with a yell.

"Hey! Before you start destroying everything, we've gotta talk to you!" yelled Kisame, dropping his henge.

Using his sand, Gaara pushed Sakura forward, ready to yank her back if the Sannin tried anything.

However, Sakura was pretty much like her in that they both tended to act rashly and violently.

Tsunade punched the nearest pillar and made her exit as the building collapsed on itself in a mess of debris and dust. The group managed to escape through the front door, but as they found themselves on the street, they were forced to realize that they had lost Gaara.

"Where the hell is he?" raged Kisame.

"Probably chasing Tsunade-hime," replied Itachi, peering into the remains of the gambling house.

It was fortunate that Gaara had pushed Sakura into his arms before running off, but it would probably have helped if the pinkette had been with him, as Tsunade would have recognized her, if only from her description.

Kisame sighed. "Fucking youngster. I should have killed him back in the mountains. Better yet, back in the summons' court. I'll take Sakura-chan. Let's go after him."

Both of them took to the rooftops, following Tsunade and Gaara's trail rather easily. Destruction abounded in their tracks.

"They'll blow our cover," groaned Kisame. He liked fights as much as the next person—and probably a lot more—but there was a time and place for everything.

"Definitely."

There was an explosion further ahead and a geyser of sand. The two finally landed in the remains of a square. Kisame shielded Sakura from a shower of dirt and yelled, "Tsunade-sama! Stop fighting!"

"Why should I?!" she yelled back, running straight at him.

"I'll kill the redhead for you later, promise, but we need you to heal someone!"

And he brandished Sakura in front of him like a shield.

Tsunade skidded to a halt inches from Sakura, eyes narrowed. She eyed Kisame warily.

Gaara came at them, surfing on a sand wave, and snatched Sakura with a growl as Tsunade leaned back, hands dropping at her waist.

She pointed at the girl, then at Kisame and Itachi. "What's up with her? And you? How did you all end up together?"

Itachi stepped forward. "Tsunade-hime, could we take this elsewhere? The townspeople are going to come out of their houses soon and they'll want to skin us. And any ninja in the vicinity will be alerted and come running."

The Sannin frowned, bit her lip, then put her hands up in surrender.

"Alright. Let's scram. But you all had better have a good explanation." 

-:- 

Taptaptap. Taptaptap. Taptaptap.

Being stared down like a child didn't feel good. Not at all. Kisame shifted uneasily, gritting his teeth, and finally got up from his spot on the bed to pace.

"Down!" barked Tsunade.

Kisame gave her a thundering look. "Fuck. You."

From the bed, Gaara and Itachi observed the scene without a word. In a chair by the window, Shizune clutched Tonton tighter to her chest.

"Wanna take this outside?" threatened Tsunade, getting up from her own chair across the small bedroom.

"Shall we?" replied Kisame.

Both of them stared at each other, inches apart, glaring daggers and spitting fuel.

Eventually, Itachi dared to speak up. "Tsunade-sama, please calm down. Kisame-san's temper is volatile, do not bear him ill will for it."

The woman glanced at him.

"Spoken like a true Uchiha. But this situation is too surreal. A shinobi from Konoha, one from Suna and one formerly from Kiri, working together?"

"Actually, I'm formerly from Suna," drawled Gaara. "I escaped with Sakura-san in the desert."

"So I'm harboring not one, but two fugitives. Great. Shizune, sake!"

The younger female complained but still got up to fetch a bottle of sake from the nearest bar.

"So. Why exactly did you seek me out?" asked Tsunade, turning away from Kisame in dismissal. She walked back to her chair and sat down in it regally, pinning the males down with a predator's stare.

"Please heal Sakura-sensei," said Itachi with a dogeza. "We have searched for you for weeks in hopes that you could heal her. She was injured because of me. Back then, Orochimaru-san tortured her, used poisons on her...she became like this because of me, Tsunade-sama! Please heal her!" he cried desperately, pain raw in his voice.

"You are aware that her mind might be beyond repair, right?" said Tsunade without batting an eye.

"Hai. But we have managed to get her Inner self to the surface, and I have personally been in her mind. She is in bad shape, but I believe with your help, she may make a full recovery."

"Get her to her village, then. Plenty of good medics there, ne?"

"I saved her from an assassination attempt in Suna because a symbol has to be strong, not crazy," said Gaara.

The busty blonde huffed. "Well. I guess that's that, then. Find me a clinic and I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama!" cried out Itachi, forehead on the floor.

"Yeah, you better be thankful. If I have to open her head, it won't be a pretty sight. I'm no good with blood. Shizune will assist me. And there she is! My savior! And a bottle of my best friend!"

Gaara piped up from the bed. "Should you be drinking before an operation?"

She shot him a dark look. "I'm not going to operate this minute, boy." 

-:- 

Chiyo cried openly, fat tears rolling on her weathered cheeks. In front of her lay a letter. The words were distorted, but she had managed to get the gist of it. Sakura was alive and of clear mind once again. What's more, she threatened to tell every village of their assassination attempt if they tried to kill her or Gaara.

"Kazekage-sama, what will you do?" she asked bravely, not afraid to face him even after months of house arrest.

"So it's either bite my tongue or risk the welfare of my ninja in whatever nation they are. Medics are indeed fearsome," growled the Kazekage.

He got up and stalked away, stopping at the door. "You're not under house arrest anymore. But speak up of this affair to anyone and I won't be merciful. Convey my feelings to that medic who had her under his care."

Then he left her home angrily, striding away with all the offended dignity of a Kage.

She slumped against the table, clenching the letter in her old hands. The chakra-infused paper crinkled, the words moved as if alive, and she smiled through her tears.

Gaara was safe. 

-:- 

There were few things Tsunade hated more than blood because it reminded her of the past, of all that she had lost. The prospect of performing a surgery was unappealing at best, but she knew, rationally, that it would eventually come to that.

She studied her journals, studied Orochimaru's that Itachi had brought her, tried to formulate an antidote to the poison he could have used, all with varying degrees of poor hope. She knew that undoing the poison's work would not be easy, even if they used an antidote to undo some of what the poison had done. Some things were too broken to be repaired. How odd that none of the males accompanying Sakura seemed to realize that.

She extracted the remains of the poison from Sakura, examining the greenish specks suspended in water speculatively, and spent a week coming up with an antidote. It was Shizune who created it in a small independent lab and administered it to Sakura.

But in the days to come, Sakura got only marginally better.

"Will I have no choice but to operate?" wondered Tsunade, looking at the moon sadly. The moon didn't answer back, and so she tossed back her sake cup. 

-:- 

Shizune looked at Tsunade worriedly. Her hands shook ever so slightly.

"Will you be alright?" she whispered, glancing at the three males.

"I have to," replied Tsunade.

"What if something happens? The operation...there could be complications..."

"There won't be," replied Tsunade strongly. "That's why you're here. With your help, the operation will turn out just fine."

Shizune twisted her hands, glancing once more at the three males a small ways away. "I hope so...If not, not only will they blame us, I'm afraid this will be a huge blow to them. Too huge to handle."

Tsunade stared openly at the males, arms crossed over her ample bosom. "That's why it's a good thing they didn't go to a Hidden Village."

She purposefully marched up to the guys and, arms akimbo, and barked, "Well? Are we doing this or not, you bunch of wimps? Stop mourning over the lack of improvement, we're finally going to do what you wanted!"

They cheered at her news, bringing a small smile to her face. Sometimes, it was good to see youngsters in high spirits.

"There is a small clinic not far away from here. I know the owner from hearsay. With enough money, he will look the other way as we use his operating room."

"Is there enough equipment there?" asked Itachi.

"There should be, don't worry. It's a good clinic, even if it's small."

"Then this will be useful," said the Uchiha, handing her all the money he had left. "Use this if you need to. There isn't much left, but if you need it to buy some equipment, it will definitely be useful." He leveled a look at her. "Don't gamble it away!"

She frowned. "I may love gambling, but I do know such things as timing and priorities. You people of no faith." 

-:- 

There was one thing Tsunade hadn't told those she affectionately dubbed "Sakura's Protectors."

"Shave her head," she ordered Shizune.

The younger woman obeyed, sighing wistfully over the loss of such pretty pink locks. One by one they fell, like falling flowers in spring, and littered the ground at their feet. Then, the two women put Sakura to sleep and carried her into the operating room.

The door closed behind them, and the males were left with nothing more than a few locks of hair.

They heard sounds coming from the other room, sounds that made anguish lodge deep in their hearts and stay there indefinitely. Sounds that made them want to cover their ears but at the same time made them afraid to do so.

On the other side of the door, the two women opened Sakura's head and Tsunade shakily turned away as Shizune dabbed at the blood from her open cranium. She fought the bile that rose in her throat, tried to ignore the slight pitter-patter of that damn blood falling to the ground, but a wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm her in its sudden appearance.

"Are you alright?" asked Shizune worriedly.

"Just...give me a moment," whispered the blonde, trying to get a grip on her emotions. She closed her eyes, concentrating on finding her center of peace within, and breathed in and out slowly. The scent of blood assaulted her nostrils, but she pushed it aside forcefully. Nothing was going to disturb her little pool of peace, no ripples, no wind, nothing. When she felt the surface was as calm as could be, she opened her eyes, determined.

She pivoted on her heels and marched back to the table and Sakura's prone body. Her eyes didn't glance away from the young girl's open skull. Fortunately, Shizune had taken care of stopping the blood flow and there was precious little left of it on the table when she turned around. She smiled grimly at the younger female and nodded her thanks, reaching for a scalpel.

"I have to get rid of the blood clots. My hand must not shake," she said firmly to herself, strengthening her resolve. This was no joke. If she messed up in any way, she would have either a very irremediably crazy or very irremediably dead girl on her hands.

"You'll be alright," murmured Shizune confidently. "You know what to do. If you have any doubt, instruct me and I'll be your hands."

Tsunade smiled in relief.

"Let's hope you don't have to."

Chakra scalpels would probably have been cleaner, but as she wasn't sure she could keep control of herself, much less of her chakra, Tsunade operated with a normal scalpel with tense but precise movements. She got rid of the blood clots that were pressing against various parts of Sakura's brain, hindering these parts' normal functioning.

Then she put the scalpel back on a tray and used chakra to gently revive the previously compressed parts. She teased them awake, helped the cells regenerate and multiply, hoped it would be enough...

And then Shizune was walking away with a bowl full of bloodied water, and she was stitching Sakura's head closed, using chakra to accelerate the healing process. Shizune returned with rolls of bandages and gingerly lifted Sakura's head from the table as Tsunade wrapped them around her head and finally tied them snugly.

Sakura remained blissfully unconscious, unaware.

Tsunade let Shizune roll the gurney on which they'd put Sakura out of the door, taking a moment herself to sigh heavily. She let herself finally tremble and stopped the sob that rose in her throat.

On the other side of the door, three males crowded around Sakura. Itachi smoothed over a crease on the warm blanket that covered Sakura up to her neck. Kisame gently covered the bandages with a woolen cap—pink, of course, as though it could replace her pastel locks. And Gaara frowned at the red-tinted white that peaked out under the cap.

"What the hell is that?!" he growled.

Tsunade chose that moment to emerge from the operating room. "You didn't really expect things to suddenly get better, as if by magic, did you? Of course we had to open her head. Be grateful things went well, little brat. So ungrateful," she tsked. Then she left the clinic, ordering Shizune to keep an eye on Sakura, and on the three guys for anything stupid, while she drowned herself in sake. She needed at least that much to calm her nerves.

Shizune smiled warmly at the males.

"Don't worry. She'll be just fine." 

-:- 

Akane and Makoto walked down the street amicably, chatting lightly about this and that. Their mission was simple enough: deliver various goods to various people in various towns. This was their last stop before going home. They stopped at the market to get directions and bought their lunch from a good-natured middle-aged lady, then headed north on the smaller roads the town had to offer.

They stopped twice more to make sure they were on the right tracks, managing to lose their way only once in the labyrinth of small paved roads.

At last they turned on a dark road and knew they were close to their goal. Ahead, a blonde woman walked off, but except for her, there were only two brown-haired men walking on the street, heading their way but paying them no mind.

Akane pointed right, and Makoto nodded. They entered, surprised not to find the man they were looking for. After all, even if the place was closed, he was supposed to live there, in an apartment adjacent to his shop. Shrugging, Makoto put the parcel on the counter with a note and they both left the shop, happy to finally get to go home.

On the other side of the street, they saw movement in a building. This in itself wouldn't have made much of an impact if the place hadn't clearly been closed.

Akane frowned and wondered why there would be people in there, but it wasn't their business, and she didn't fancy sticking her head in someone else's business and risk the consequences.

So she tugged Makoto by the arm and they walked down the street instead, intent on finding an inn before the sun set completely.

They didn't make it far before a yell stopped them short in their tracks.

"Hey! You two! Yeah, you medics!"

Tensing, they turned around. Oftentimes, thanks to the kanji written on their backs, they were stopped by a civilian—and sometimes ninja—but they never stopped being tense when called, for all kinds of people hailed them, and in such a neighborhood, one could never be too careful.

And in fact, the one who had called out to them was one pretty dangerous person. Dark of skin, except where scars crisscrossed in pale jagged lines, his hair was a tangled mess that hid partially his deep blue eyes. His clothes had clearly seen better days but did nothing to hide how muscled he was, and apparently, those muscles were intent on killing them, if the large axe he toyed with was any indication.

With a smirk, the man roared and lunged at them, only to be tackled to a building by a jet of sand with a sick crush.

An improbable group left the building they had been close to investigating, a female they had seen before in passing, an Uchiha who had frequented the medical village often enough to be recognized on sight, a redhead with murderous jade eyes, and a tall blue man, carrying in his arms the unconscious form of their village's leader.

"Are you alright?" asked the Uchiha as the body of the man who had been about to pounce on them slid down the wall.

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And now, the aftermath! Sakura will finally awaken! See you then!


	117. Sleeping Beauty's Awakening

I'm back! I worked extra hard to get this ready before Christmas! Hope you enjoy. It is a bit…Well, you'll see. Tell me what you think. I tried to make Sakura's reaction believable.

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Akane blinked at the surreality of the scene. For a moment, long, tense and silent, the only movement on the street was the body of the unconscious man sliding down the wall with a sick squelching sound.

Then a nervous giggle escaped her and she clamped her lips shut to keep anything else from coming out of her mouth.

At her side, Makoto relaxed, surprising her. He was always more perceptive than her, and also more stressed up. To see him relax like this was very unusual.

"Uchiha-san, Hoshigaki-san," he said, nodding his head at the two males. "It is surprising to see you here, but thank you for your help."

She had not been to the medical village for all that long and blamed that for not recognizing immediately the two guys. Her eyes zeroed in on the child in the blue man's arms.

"Is that..." she breathed, throat clenching at the possibilities.

The black-haired male turned to look at the sleeping child, face unchanging but somehow mellowing. He smiled slightly then, and the stress lines on his face lessened. "It is," he said simply. "And she's going to be alright."

Somehow, Akane believed everything would be. 

-:- 

Tsunade got sloshed, coming back late at night only to find that her hotel room had suddenly become a mess of tangled limbs, bodies strewn along the floor in various positions.

"What is going on here?!" she grumbled unhappily.

Shizune groggily got up from the chair in which she had been lightly dozing while waiting for the blonde to come back. "Oh...Well...things happened...We met two of the people of the medical village and they came back with us. They're..." She faltered and looked around, finally pointing at two pairs of feet peeking out behind the bed and an armchair. "There. Anyway, point is, they agreed to go back to their village with the guys. They'll leave as soon as you give the ok for travel."

"As far as I'm concerned, they can get their asses out of here right now, but I guess they should wait a day or two. Now, is there a spot without someone sprawled in it where I could lie down for a while?" 

-:- 

Dawn filtered through the orangish curtains, casting a muted glow in the room over its numerous occupants. Someone groaned and rolled over, apparently smacking a neighboring body in the face, if the unhappy groan that garnered was any indication.

After a moment, the second person rolled away and slowly got up, blinking to get back to full consciousness.

Then Makoto turned away and popped his neck. He scratched his jaw and noted that Kisame was already up, sitting in an armchair too small for him. The two men nodded silently to each other, though Kisame's eyes didn't stray from the bed, as conscious and hyperaware of everyone in the room as he was.

Under the sheets, Sakura slept peacefully, head swathed in bandages. On either side of her, a boy lay with her. On the left, Itachi slept, an arm around her. On the right, Gaara, leaning against the headboard, glared mightily at said arm as though willing it to auto-combust. Tendrils of sand swirled agitatedly across the bedding, showing clearly the seemingly impassive redhead's feelings.

A snore escaped Akane; Makoto shook his head. "Should I get us all some breakfast?" he asked in low tones.

"I'll come with you," rumbled Kisame.

"Oh, I...thanks," replied Makoto, surprised.

From behind him, a grouchy voice groaned, "Do whatever you guys want, but STOP TALKING!"

No use angering a woman renowned for making dust out of rocks with her fists. The two men shared a look and disappeared out the door.

Gaara looked at them go with piercing jade eyes. 

-:- 

Two days later found the small group heading for Sakura's village. Tsunade and Shizune split up from the group that morning, assured that Sakura would be fine and if anything happened, Akane and Makoto would be able to handle it. They had kept Sakura under except for when they fed her, knowing that she would overexert herself if she was awake. It was just easier if she was asleep to speed up her recovery. Tsunade had done all she could to that extent, forcing her brain into sleep and making sure her sutures were not leaking.

Now, Sakura was on her last stretch as Sleeping Beauty, due to wake up sometime during the day. It showed: everyone was giddy with excitement, waiting with bated breath for the bald pinkette to wake up.

They didn't travel as fast as they would have, not wanting to jostle the female too much, and all of them glanced at her from time to time. It was Gaara, unsurprisingly, who spotted the first sign that she was coming out of her forced sleep.

"Her fingers are twitching," was all he said.

"Let's find a room for the night," replied Itachi instantly as everyone crowded around the slowly stirring medic.

Akane snapped out of it the fastest and ran ahead, telling them over her shoulder that she was on it.

The rest followed at a more sedate pace, shaking with excitement. From time to time, one of Sakura's fingers would twitch, or her eyebrows would, and at some point she sighed loudly. By the time she began to groan and murmur, they were checking in at a small inn. Akane shooed them up the stairs as she forked over enough money to pacify the innkeeper and keep his lips shut.

Upstairs, Sakura was laid down on a bed; everyone gathered silently around her, positively vibrating in anticipation.

She twitched, her head turned to the side, she exhaled for the longest of moments, and then she moaned, eyebrows furrowing in pain and confusion. She opened her mouth a few times, lips dry. Someone pressed a glass of water against her lips, helped her moisten her mouth.

"What the hell...What kind of beast trampled on my head?" she groaned, one of her hands instinctively reaching for her head.

Itachi quickly covered her hand in his to keep her from finding the bandages and freaking out. They had to start slowly with her memories. "Sensei," he called out softly, "it's me, Itachi. You are safe. We are safe. How do you feel?"

She frowned, trying to sit up. Gaara's sand picked her up and helped her do it properly, to which she frowned uncertainly.

"What is this...sand? What the hell? Is there...Gaara-san?" Her head whipped around, making it apparent she couldn't tell who was with her and was trying to determine where she was and who was around her.

"I'm here," replied the redhead in an even tone.

She was getting confused, clearly not quite aware of everything that had gone on around her for the past months. Confused and frustrated, and more and more panicked.

"What the fuck...Where am I? Who's here? Where's the snake bastard? What happened? What..." And suddenly, her memories seemed to catch up with her as she noticed that Itachi's hand felt different under her own, like she couldn't feel certain parts. Or rather, hers felt rather incomplete. Her voice got several octaves higher in a horrified screech. "What the _hell_ happened to my hands?! My _hands_! Am I missing fingers?!" She rounded on Itachi, or in his general direction anyway, and demanded furiously, "Am I _fucking_ missing fingers?!"

Kisame and Gaara had the good sense to keep silent and let the Uchiha handle the oncoming shitstorm, Kisame even going so far as to put his hand across Makoto's mouth, glaring at Akane to keep quiet. She nodded minutely as Itachi calmed Sakura with soothing words and gentle caresses of his thumbs across the back of her hands. Then, seeming to think better of it as she tensed up, presumably at the reminder of what her hands were now like, he moved up to caress her arms gently.

"Sensei. Sensei. Sakura," he tried, and to his satisfaction, she snapped up at the intimate way he had called her and the tone he had used to do so. "Sakura. Orochimaru-san is well and truly dead. Has been for a while. He did...damage to your mind that took a while to revert, but here you are now, alive and well, if missing a few phalanges. But don't worry about that for now," he added quickly as her breathing quickened in panic. "You're here with us, Hoshigaki-san and Gaara-san, and two medics from your village. It was Tsunade-sama who operated on you a few days ago."

"Eh?" she asked, the most articulate she could be. Her head was swimming with the amount of information Itachi had just pumped into her.

"She said we'd know if it had worked when you woke up. Are you feeling fine? Of course you're fine, you're speaking to me like a normal person and haven't yet retreated into your inner world. Do you feel fine? It's kind of hard to tell..."

"Itachi-kun! Stop! You're making me dizzy," she moaned, trying to calm down and leaning more heavily against the pillows at her back. She breathed slowly through her nose as she tried desperately not to let her emotions overcome her. She felt like she was on a small, frail boat in the middle of the ocean and suddenly, the ocean seemed to reach the sky as a tsunami headed straight for her, and she could do nothing but try to paddle away, desperately but with the certainty that it wouldn't be enough.

Her head hurt, a pounding that got louder and louder with every moment, and she was winding herself up more and more...And then with a gentle touch to her head, all of that ebbed away, eased by a soothing wave of chakra that stole her consciousness away.

Itachi looked at Makoto in thanks. Kisame whistled low. "Well, it could have been worse," he said, scratching the back of his head.

Itachi sighed, feeling drained.

"Somehow, I get the feeling this is going to be hard."

Everyone felt knackered; they had some food brought up and ate in the room in companionable silence, then they all played jan-ken-pon to decide who stayed in the room with Sakura and who stayed in the neighboring room.

Nobody spoke much after that. They all went to sleep, shaken up still, but none of them could sleep quite as soundly as they wanted to. Their ears were always open for any sign of discomfort on Sakura's part, but she didn't wake up until dawn. 

-:- 

No one quite knew how Sakura would react, but no one expected her to take the loss of her fingers so hard. Gaara, for one, was completely bewildered, even though it didn't show much in his countenance. He simply kept at a distance, unsure how to react. She was depressed, sad, and a whole lot of other negative sentiments on that second day of wakefulness.

Gaara peered at her discreetly as she got to her feet and promptly bumped into an armchair.

"What is wrong with her?" he whispered to Makoto, trying to be discreet. Unfortunately, the sound carried in the small room and Sakura's head whipped around angrily.

"What is wrong with me? What is _wrong_ with me?! I'll tell you what's wrong with me! I'm missing several fingers! Or parts of them! Thanks to that fucking shit, I can't even do a proper jutsu anymore! I can't be a fucking ninja anymore, never mind a medic since I can't even sense there's a _fucking_ chair in my way! Fuck!"

Bewildered, Gaara took a step backward to avoid another poisonous confrontation. He looked at Itachi with wide eyes.

"Sakura-chan," appeased the Uchiha, "do not worry overly much. Not being able to do your sensory jutsu is a huge loss, I'll admit, but the bats taught us all how to sharpen our senses. When you're feeling better, you'll be able to work on that once more. This is not the end of the road for you."

"Like I can even contact the bats anymore! I'm fucking useless! No, more than that, I'm a fucking liability! I can't see shit, and I couldn't block a blow if you told me where you were going to hit! Fuck! I might as well return to my cave and hole myself up in it forever!"

Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent in silence, though Sakura steadfastly refused to be carried during their travel. She tripped more often than not, and it was only due to Kisame's towering presence that she did not bump into people—one tended to get out of the way of glaring, monstrous people. But still, she always got to her feet when she fell—not that Gaara let that happen often, though at some point, she yelled at him to stop using his sand to catch her before she hit the ground—and carried on courageously, and if anyone saw tears of frustration leak into her blindfold, nobody mentioned it.

Gaara unusually stayed behind, pensive. Noticing this, Itachi and Akane let themselves fall back to and walked on either side of him, silently waiting for him to say what was on his mind. Gaara's eyes stayed glued to Sakura's back; he twitched when Kisame reached out to grab Sakura as she tripped yet again on a snow-covered pebble.

"What bothers her...If I had a way to help with that, should I tell her now?" he murmured mostly to himself.

Itachi shook his head. Akane replied softly, so as to avoid being overheard, "This is not the right moment. She is too wound up. If you do have a way to help her, I'd suggest waiting until tomorrow morning, when she's had some rest and is relaxed and in a...better mood."

Gaara mulled over her words, chancing a glance at Itachi to find him nodding in agreement.

He palmed his weapons pouch, more pensive than ever. He had carried it for a while, and its contents were ones he would not lose, ever. When it was time and Sakura was in a better mood, one in which she would be more inclined to listen, he would give her what he had prepared before he had left his village, before he had become a nuke-nin. His hand clenched then relaxed. He was in no hurry. Sakura was not going anywhere.

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A bit depressing, eh? But Sakura can't be all happy after realizing exactly what has happened to her and what that entails. Still, I swear it will be a lot happier next time, when they get to the medical village. One of my favourite characters will appear! Guess who it will be?

By the way, jan-ken-pon is a Japanese game like rock-paper-scissors.


	118. The 3 Phases and the Fairy Godmother

Hello, everyone! Merry New Year, thanks for the wishes! I worked hard to get this ready for you as soon as possible. I hope you all had a great time for Christmas or whatever you feast and party for, I sure did! (But I still thought of you, see?)

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Brooding Sakura was just as dangerous as Normal Sakura, especially as her silence only concealed her negative emotions until they grew too explosive for her to contain.

Everyone tried to stay out of her way as much as it was possible, given they all traveled together, but although they understood her reasons for being so tense and depressed, it didn't make things any easier to bear.

Kisame, in particular, found it hard to avoid growling at her to snap out of it. He was not known for his patience, after all. Still, there was something he could do, maybe, to give Sakura some perspective about her situation.

Silently, he signaled for everyone to go ahead and stayed behind with Sakura, adapting his pace to hers. As everyone walked ahead, occasionally glancing back at them, he waited for the pinkette to say something. Twice she stumbled before she finally opened her mouth to grumble, "Well? Out with it. Say what you will and leave me be."

Kisame twitched, clenching his hands to avoid the temptation of slapping the back of her head. If she didn't have those bandages to remind him...

"Stop with this petty grudge. Vent your anger elsewhere, not on people who have your well-being in mind. Alienating one's allies is foolish at best, as well you know."

She tripped, narrowly avoiding flattening herself in the snow, and spat, "What the hell would _you_ know? It's not like you could understand anyway!"

Kisame's expression closed off at the cruel words and for the longest time, he remained silent in contemplation. Such memories...

He shook his head. "Understand? I understand pain and mutilation all too well. I may be a monster, but I wasn't that much of one at birth. It may not astound you too much to know that people have a knack for creating monsters and disasters." His voice was flat and completely devoid of emotion. Too much, in fact, like it was calculated. And it was, for if he gave his voice any inflection, his pain, raw even after all those years, would become all too apparent. "Oh, little one, I know all too well what you might be feeling. But self-pity won't do anything for you. If you're weak, you only have to become strong. But are you strong enough in here," he said, lightly tapping her forehead with a crooked finger, "to get out of the ditch you're in?"

She fumed at his insinuations, but he merely walked forward, hands in his pockets. To all, he seemed relaxed, but under the surface, emotions roiled in him, potent despite the number of years that had passed since he had made his peace with his past—or so he had thought.

Gaara and Itachi didn't disturb him as he joined them; they didn't try to engage him in conversation—somehow, the look on his face would have conveyed his lack of interest in polite conversation even if he didn't say a thing supporting this assessment. 

-:- 

Pensive Sakura was not much different from Normal Sakura. Normal Sakura could spend hours studying silently a venom to determine its exact properties. But Normal Sakura did not usually spend quite so much time in introspection. She did, occasionally, stop and analyze her feelings or her actions, but life always managed to disturb her when she did. Satsuki, for one, had been a constant in this role in Sakura's village. Not now, however. She was no idiot and had noticed that her group was making tremendous effort to avoid disturbing her contemplative mood—she didn't know if she was grateful for that or wanted to strangle them for reminding her that she was in a fragile state.

Itachi put a plate in front of her. She didn't notice. Shaking his head with a rueful smile, the Uchiha gently put a hand on her arm to get her attention.

"Food?" he asked with a small smile as her stomach grumbled.

"Smells good. Give it here."

Ensued several minutes of humiliation as Sakura tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to get the food in her mouth rather than around it or on her nose. She was annoyed at the difficulty of the simple, mundane task.

But it didn't distract her for long. When she finally gave up and let Itachi feed her, she retreated back into her inner world, only having to occasionally and rather regularly open her mouth. It made everyone—except maybe Gaara—stifle smiles of amusement. She would never have accepted that from anyone else, and she seemed so attuned to Itachi that they moved seamlessly together, opening her mouth just as he approached the chopsticks. More than that, it seemed she wasn't even aware of it, or not consciously so anyway, so far gone into her mind that her every action was simply automatic.

Toward the end of the meal, he pressed a mug full of steaming tea into her hands. As her fingers curled around it and clasped it gingerly, he kept his hands on top of hers, gently lending her his warmth. After a while, her hands twitched, and the ghost of a smile touched her lips, sad and frail but also somewhat hopeful, in a gentle and timid way.

And then something more gentle than a mother's embrace, more fragile than a baby bird's wings brushed her cheek. But it was warmer than the softest of the blankets she had ever been wrapped in and she let herself be cradled against Itachi's chest, twin tears leaving shimmery tracks across her cheeks. She made no move to wipe them off, feeling somewhat cleansed by those tears but having no idea why she was even crying in the first place. And she smiled through them, hiccupping slightly as she burrowed her nose into Itachi's neck. 

-:- 

Amazed Sakura was pretty much the same as Childish Sakura. Looking at her, Gaara was relatively sure that had she had eyes, they would have been wide and sparkly.

He hung back as she pushed chakra to the soles of her feet and stood cautiously on top of the water. With a little whoop, she jumped up and landed in a crouch on the surface of the hot spring—no need to test it in a dangerous setting, and the little pool hadn't been far.

Giggling, she pushed more chakra into her legs and jumped higher, doing a flip into the air before doing a cartwheel atop the surface of the water.

She whooped once more, feeling more alive than she had in days. Gaara couldn't quite understand her joy, fleeting though it may be. He observed her calmly, keeping far, far away from the newest arrival, decked in possibly the worst attire he had ever seen.

Itachi, for one, seemed to know the man well, though he looked a bit overwhelmed by the man's outspoken positive attitude. Such a thing wasn't quite common among people of their particular profession.

He was the one who had pointed out—with a bright smile and what looked like a genjutsu, though Gaara could feel none—that missing limbs might make it impossible for a ninja to be exactly like they were before, but that it did not matter as much as she thought. A ninja's whole body was a weapon, and if one part was missing or unable to perform its duty, the other parts simply had to make up for it. (In more flowery terms, of course, but that was the gist of it, once you got past the "youthful" parts.)

He had suggested trying a fee chakra control exercises; tree walking had been fine, and it seemed water walking was a success too. But still Sakura could not do any jutsu, and so her face quickly darkened once the childlike joy at not being completely bereft of all ninja-like capacities waned. She stopped her caterwauling and sat on the surface of the smoking water for a long time while the group conversed in low tones nearby.

Gaara, who had no use for the group as a whole, kept his eyes trained on Sakura. She threatened to go back into her shell, and that would be most boring and frankly inadequate.

Annoyed more than anything, he marched straight up to her, roughly grabbed one of her hands and dropped a sack into it.

Her head snapped up in surprise; he growled, ticked off.

"Open it and stop sulking. It's..." Unbecoming? Annoying? Frustrating? All of the above? "Off-putting." The word he had finally settled for didn't quite convey everything, but it would have to do. He had no intention to start blabbering every word that could passably apply to the situation in search of the right one.

She barked an unhappy laugh. "And what is this? A token of your appreciation of my joyful company?" She snorted, ruffling through the little bag. Her face froze as her fingers touched something she did not recognize at once yet took her but a nanosecond to visualize properly.

Her hand clenched around the object with sporadic tremors as she trembled, heart squeezing with emotion. Her face shone with amazement.

"Is that..." Her throat contracted. She gulped. Her voice shook, desperately wanting to believe but not actually daring to. "Is it...what I think it is?"

Gaara looked away uncomfortably. Emotions were not really his thing. Especially what were known as positive ones.

Unfortunately for him, it appeared they had garnered everyone's attention. His sand swirled around him in agitation, but his face remained stoic. He was not an attention whore and was more than uncomfortable, but he would not show it on his face.

"Before leaving Suna, I thought you might need them some day..." he trailed off, unsure of his next actions. More uncomfortable than ever, he turned on his heels and stalked off as she slowly got to her feet.

"Gaara-san!"

Her cry made him look back. She was now on her feet, her hands cupped around her mouth like a cornet. "Thank you!"

Her smile was blinding. Could it get more uncomfortable?

He reached the shore and resolutely turned his back on Sakura, ignoring the curious gazes of the rest of the party.

Mildly wondering what Gaara had given Sakura, Itachi gave the redhead a cursory glance and went to get Sakura who, if she could localize them generally from their voices, was still heading too much to their left.

As he came to her side, he asked her curiously, "What's in the bag?"

She merely opened the satchel and he peered inside with barely veiled wonder. "Do you want me to put them on for you?"

She nodded shyly, handing him the bag. The Uchiha cradled one of her hands in his and reached for the first of the objects. Putting it on her finger, he murmured bashfully, "I feel like one of the princes from those fairytale stories handing a ring to their princess."

She chuckled breathlessly, "I'm no fairytale princess, but...I guess Gaara-san is my fairy godmother, ne? Who knew he'd give me puppet fingers to replace my own..."

She hugged Itachi, crushed him to her as she laughed freely, exhilarated; tears of joy ran down her cheeks, unbidden, as Itachi hugged her back just as hard.

She was crying and laughing and, most of all, free!

She would have to get used to these puppet fingers, but already, she could feel that although they would never really replace her own, she could learn to use them. Maybe she would be able to handle weapons properly again.

Excited at the very idea of trying, Sakura disentangled herself from Itachi's arms. "Give me a kunai, I want to try to throw it!" she piped up, pawing at his hips in search of his weapons pouch.

Lightly chuckling, he pressed one into her questing hands and, putting his hands on her hips, turned her so she wouldn't risk maiming anyone. He hung back as she gripped the smooth handle with relish, crouching lightly. For a moment, she didn't move...the kunai flew through the air...and landed somewhere in the underbrush, clear off its mark.

"Did I hit it?" she asked eagerly.

"Well..." he began, embarrassedly rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, "I think you might need a bit of practice."

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A new arc will begin soon! By the way, I had this planned for a long time. How many of you had guessed that Gaara had asked Kankurou to craft puppet fingers for Sakura?


	119. Trouble in Myou

Hello! Glad to hear from me? ^^ I had fun writing this, it really flowed on its own, and aren't we all glad when that happens? Hopefully, the next chapter will be as easy to write; I intend to start on it soon, and have it already planned out, so while I won't make any promises, you should hear from me again before long. By the way, check on my profile, I've put up a new poll (the details are explained at the end of the chapter, so be sure to read them before you vote; I just don't want your answers to change).

To my dear reviewer who wished this could be a manga, sorry, but I'm no good at drawing, so this won't come from me and won't happen unless someone really motivated decides to do it in my stead. If anyone feels it's their cup of tea, do go ahead.

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Sakura hummed gently to herself, flexing her fingers. The puppet parts responded well, all things considered. She had to work on her aim when handling weapons, and she still couldn't see a single thing, but things were getting better. Slowly.

She desperately tried to get in a better mood, to put behind her all that had happened to her, and to get on with her life. How many months of her life had she lost, locked in her own mind?

She shook her head. Negative thoughts didn't get one anywhere and she did not want to let them poison her like they had the Sasuke of her original timeline.

She let herself look forward to returning to Myou and seeing her apprentice once again. Satsuki, too, should be doing well. Toranosuke, Satoshi...she hoped their relationship was still strong and healthy. All these people...they had become her family, people she kept close to her bosom, people she dearly missed.

She tugged on Kisame's hair to get his attention. His head turned slightly in her direction, sign that he was listening. She lightly swung her feet, hitting his chest in cadence, and, leaning on his head, cushioned her chin in her palm.

"Ne, ne, Kisame-kun...When are we getting to Myou? I'm looking forward to seeing my village again."

"I'll bet," he replied with a smirk at her enthusiasm. "Give it a few more days. Since you're now riding on my shoulders, we can go much faster...Maybe three days?"

"Fine, fine. Can we stop for the night? I'm hungry and I need to have my bandages changed."

It was Itachi who answered. "I'll go ahead and look for a suitable place to make camp."

She smiled in response.

Less than an hour later, they stopped near a hot spring. Makoto took care to change Sakura's bandages while Itachi built a fire and Kisame hunted something suitable for supper. Gaara observed the medic with insistence while he changed the bandages and disturbed him in his task, though Makoto really tried his best to not let it matter to him.

It appeared that Sakura was healing nicely. The stitches were red, but there was no pus and the skin around them was only just pink. Nothing was wrong, and it was what Makoto told Sakura, who looked pleased at the news.

Soon, she would be able to go about her day normally. The simple thought of it made a smile bloom on her face. 

-:- 

Satoshi sipped his tea while looking over various reports. He supposed, all things considered, that things were going well. The village was prospering, though he acutely felt the loss of his mistress.

A knock at the door disturbed him in his work. Putting his teacup down, he called out, "Enter!"

With a little smile, Satsuki opened the door and came in, carrying a pile of scrolls. At his disgruntled face, she chuckled lightly.

"Isn't there ever an end to this paperwork?" he sighed as she put the scrolls on the corner of his desk.

"You should know better," she replied with a snort. "The day there isn't any more paperwork is the day this village dies. Anyway, I didn't come here just for this."

Intrigued, Satoshi lifted an eyebrow at her in inquiry. "Oh? Pray tell. At this point, I'm willing to accept any excuse to escape this paperwork, if only for a minute."

Nodding, she sat down on the other side of his desk and looked at him seriously.

"Some people are causing a ruckus in a teahouse downriver. I noticed as I went by. They are nuke-nin, and I think they're the same who tried to establish a headquarters of sorts here to enjoy the neutrality of this village, a month ago."

"Them again? Hadn't we made it _clear_ they had to be on their best behaviour or leave?!" he exclaimed, enraged as he rarely was. Myou was a precious jewel that had to remain untainted and pure, worthy of Sakura when she returned—for she was just too stubborn not to. He would not let some callous people ruin it! "Maybe they did not understand the message and need to be reminded," he said bitingly. 

-:- 

Momiji cowered behind the counter as five men ransacked his little teahouse, brawling and breaking things. He closed his eyes tightly, too afraid to try and make a break for it.

_Can't the heavens have pity on me?!_ he prayed fervently. _I'll burn a hundred incense sticks to whichever deity helps me right now, before I lose everything I own! This little teahouse is all I have!_

Huddling against him, his daughter trembled in fear. He hoped that whatever happened, she wouldn't be injured.

All of his clients had left, except for one who, even now, drank calmly. One of the nuke-nin approached the loner as the same time that another, looking for the pretty waitress, jumped behind the counter and grabbed Momiji's daughter by the arm. Hauling her behind him, he crowed to the others about his find. Horrified, Momiji leapt after him, trying to stop him, but only managed to get kicked in the gut and crashed against the wall, unconscious.

Meanwhile, one of the nuke-nin, irritated that the last customer was blatantly ignoring him, yanked off the calm person's straw hat. He whistled as a pretty face was revealed to his suddenly lecherous eyes.

"Hey, guys! Look at this! Seems like we'll have another gal to play with!"

The roars of approval only lasted long enough to echo in the small room before blood sprayed across the room and the man who had been harassing the female customer sank to the floor, beheaded.

"What the _fuck_?!"

Within moments, the little teahouse turned into a murder scene. Amid screams of pain and terror, blood sprayed across the floor, the walls, the ceiling. The four remaining men didn't stand a chance.

Sidestepping the corpses, the woman approached the terrified waitress. Her pupils were blown wide, her breathing was ragged, there was an unhealthy pallor to her cheeks, but overall, she was fine. Crouching, she spoke in calming tones. "These men will not bother you again. Farewell, now. I will be on my way."

The waitress could only nod dumbly as the woman left the room. 

-:- 

Satoshi, accompanied by a few of Myou's permanent ninja who made up the village's police, marched down the street with purpose. His face was twisted in unhappiness, and the people who accompanied him knew better than to talk to him when he was in this mood. Only Toranosuke, maybe, would have been able to calm him down, but as he had not accompanied them, there was nothing to do but let things happen as they would.

Surprisingly, as they approached the teahouse, they found the street empty, as if everyone had deserted it in fright. Even the surrounding shops were silent, like prey animals falling silent when a predator approached. Furthermore, as they got closer to the teahouse, sounds of battle reached their ears, stopping barely a moment later. Skidding to a halt as a person left the shop, they prepared their weapons in case the female intended to fight them too.

However, the woman only looked at them passively and nodded to them in acknowledgement.

"It isn't so easy to find a place to relax and enjoy a drink and a good meal in this world," she said. "Forgive me for the mess I caused; I only wanted peace to finish my tea before getting back on the road. I have no intention to fight you."

With that said, she walked off, putting her hat back on.

Satoshi felt torn between stopping her and checking the teahouse, but once he looked back at the street after glancing at the teahouse, he saw that the woman had mysteriously disappeared. No sign was left of her presence, no footsteps in the snow to indicate where she could have gone, but he wasn't sure he would have followed her anyway had she given him any hint of where she was headed. His choice having been made for him, he merely sighed and waved at his people to follow him.

Indeed, there was carnage inside, the walls had been repainted red, a red that would never completely leave and would give the wood a slightly reddish tint forever, and there were a few tables upended or otherwise broken, but it appeared that the owner and his daughter were unharmed. All in all, it could have been worse, but now he had two traumatized people to deal with. 

-:- 

Upon reaching Myou, Sakura felt something intangible pierce her bosom. Wincing, she lightly rapped Kisame on the head to get his attention and told him she wanted to get off.

"You okay?" he asked as he took her by the waist and put her down on the snow-covered road.

Everyone, noticing they had fallen behind, stopped for them with curiosity, waiting for an explanation from either one of them.

"I...How far are we? From Myou, I mean?" she asked the tall man.

"I can see it, but we can't hear it yet, 'cept for the waterfall," he said, looking into the horizon.

"Close enough...everyone, go ahead. I'll stay here for a while," she decided, much to everyone's surprise.

Puzzled glances were exchanged. As usual, Itachi was the one who addressed her when put in front of emotional matters. Per tacit understanding, he was the one who understood most and acted more appropriately when she was emotionally distressed or they simply didn't understand her, which was not really surprising, given they were all more or less emotionally damaged. He was, at the very least, more diplomatic and knew how to handle her.

"Why? Is there a reason you want us to go ahead?"

She walked around, looking for a boulder to sit on. When she finally stumbled upon one and got rid of the snow covering it, she sat down on it calmly and gave them her attention once more.

"Before going there and being observed by everyone, I'd enjoy having a moment alone with myself. To prepare myself, if you will. Go ahead, tell my apprentice I'm coming, and when things die down, come back and get me. By then, I should be calm and ready to face everyone. Could you do that for me?" She hoped she didn't sound too desperate, but she was deeply unsettled at the idea of being back in Myou, when it had been a dream for so long. An almost unattainable one, too, for she had been trapped in her own mind, a worse prison than any she had ever been in. Now that the village was so close, however, she felt unsettled. How would people react? She was not the same person they had known. Somehow, she felt…reduced. She wasn't quite ashamed of her state, but she wasn't all that far from it.

Kisame kicked some snow unhappily. "I'm not sure I'm happy about that. What if something happens?"

"This close to Myou? Doubtful. We're in the neutral zone. Besides, if anything happens, I'll simply channel chakra into my tattoo and reappear in my cave, so y'all, don't worry so. Go ahead without worries."

Arguing for a few more moments, they finally did Sakura's bidding when it became clear she would not change her mind. Gaara had to be almost dragged away, but he fortunately didn't lash out violently and followed the rest of the group with growls and grumbles, looking back once at Sakura to see her waving cheerily at them. Reassured, he bit the inside of his cheek and continued on his way without turning back again.

Left alone, Sakura let her tension leave her body with a sigh. She didn't know if she was ready to face her village in the state she was in.

"Pretty useless, I am, eh? Have to work on that properly..."

"Before that, care to accompany me?"

"Who's there?" she asked, whirling around at the high-pitched voice.

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As usual, read and review! By the way, I have a new poll for you guys! I've been wondering whether to take this in a dark (and I mean dark, as in people may die, there will be carnage and unhappy stuff, etc.) or go with something a bit less dark (that doesn't mean less adventures, if you were wondering). I look forward to hearing from you!


	120. Lying by Omission

Dearest readers, it seems most of you want things to stay as they were and not get darker. Alright, I'll do my best to abide by those wishes. This fic needs a certain amount of darkness but I'll try not to make it more so or at least give you some comic relief. I do promise a happy ending, whatever you may read in the future and whichever way my muse decides to take me. enjoy the chapter!

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She most surely did not recognize that voice. That, and the fact that she hadn't heard any footsteps, made her tense minutely, ready for a fight if need be. The words hadn't sounded ominous, but that alone didn't mean anything.

"I don't mean any harm." Yeah, like that made her feel any better. "I'm here per Machi-obaa-sama's request." Now that piqued her interest. She waited for the—bat? Must be, right?—anyway, her interlocutor, to expand on that a bit.

"She sent me to invite you to Chiyoko-chan's funeral. The preparation is done, we're just waiting for you, if you want to come."

She bit the inside of her cheek pensively, emotions churning in her chest. "I'm...dead? I had wondered where she was, but...how? When?" she asked, throat tightening.

"She...She was...She sacrificed herself when you were rescued. It allowed us bats to come here and help you. Anyway...will you come?"

There was a muffled tension in that voice that made her say yes.

"How long will I be gone? I don't want to make anybody worry here."

"As I said, everything is ready. You won't be gone for more than a few hours at most."

"Alright, then. Let's go." 

-:- 

Satoshi was still stewing silently, fingers drumming angrily on the desk before him. Massacres always gave him headaches, and cleaning up after one was a messy affair that made him grit his teeth. And the day had begun so well, too! Maybe he could convince Toranosuke to take some time off so they could enjoy a quiet evening by themselves—if Satsuki didn't act like she was their teenage daughter and keep interrupting them.

As if on cue, she opened the door with a bang and ran in, skidding to a halt inches from his nose despite him leaning back in alarm at her sudden entrance.

"They're back!"

He tried to get his heart to stop its frantic beating inside his chest, glaring at her in admonishment. What had her so excited?

"They're _back_, I'm telling you!" she said as if expecting him to be just as excited as her. He wondered which team had come back from their mission that made her so joyful. When he didn't so much as twitch, she pouted unhappily. "It's been so long and you don't even react?!"

"Would you please calm down and tell me who, exactly, has come back?"

"Sensei's beaus! They're _here_! Both of them! I know it seems impossible, but Hoshigaki-san isn't dead!"

He started, nearly banging his head against hers as he shot up, eyes wide in surprise. "Ojou-sama! What about her? She is with them, right?"

"They say she needed some time to herself so they left her at the edge of the village, but yeah! Isn't that great?"

"Wait...they left her there alone? Just like that? We may be in a neutral zone, but if there are thugs around like those of the teahouse...I know she can defend herself, I know! I know, but..."

Satsuki placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"But you can't help worrying. I know. I'm the same. She just looks so fragile, especially with her pink hair. But she's stronger than both of us can imagine, I think. She'll be fine for a few hours on her own."

He nodded, but then added, distressed, "But what if she meets one of those thugs? She would be so ashamed of me for being unable to contain things during her absence!"

She couldn't help it. She laughed.

-:- 

The wind was cold on her face, whipping about her face regularly. At first, she was disoriented. She knew she was not indoors, the wind was proof of that, but she couldn't tell much else.

"Welcome back." Ah. That voice she recognized.

"Machi-sama. My apologies for what happened to Chiyoko-chan," she said truthfully with a formal bow in the great bat's general direction.

"'Twas her choice, tragic though it was," replied Machi sadly and solemnly.

She smiled sadly; the loss felt more acute, somehow, now that they were at the funeral. Things were more...real. Final.

"Yeah..." She breathed in the clean air, trying to find some inner peace, and turned her face to the sun. "Where are we, exactly?"

"You know we live in a mountain. This is the summit," explained the bat that had taken her there. "Traditionally, we cremate our dead and scatter their ashes on the wind from here. This time, you were chosen to be the urn bearer. We will sing, and when the song ends, you will scatter the ashes. Easy."

Something that seemed too small was put in her arms, and she gingerly cradled it close to her chest, shaking slightly. Her throat clenched painfully.

She nodded respectfully, overwhelmed by the honor they bestowed upon her. "Thank you. Just...thank you. I...I really appreciate that you waited for me before you started the funeral."

Machi said, "'Twas the honorable thing to do. Chiyoko-chan and thee...more than summon and summoner. Friends. That bond doth not fade in death."

She nodded, pressing her cheek to the cool pottery.

She was led to a pier, or what felt like one, a large rock outcrop at the very summit. The steps were snowy, but she had a good guide who made sure she did not slip down the spiraling staircase. Left alone on the stone slab with simple instructions to say a few words before scattering the ashes, she tried not to look lost as her guide took the sky with the hundreds of bats that were already flapping around, high above her.

She could guess they were all there, flying in a circle in the clear sky, and soon she heard them. Hundreds of voices in hundreds of different pitches sounded as one in song, the sad melody flowing through her as though her soul was in unison with it, with the whole flock and, somehow, with Chiyoko herself. She was almost vibrating, living the moment with something close to reverence, and in her trance-like state, she was unable to tell how much time had passed before the melody faded away.

She took a deep breath, holding the urn at arm's length and spoke solemnly. "I'm sorry, Chiyoko-chan...thank you. You were a better friend than I deserved. The best friend one could ask for..."

She threw the ashes into the air; the flapping of the bats' wings grew louder. The wind their enormous circle created around her took the ashes far into the sky into a tourbillion until at last, they scattered across the wind.

She felt it somehow, and by the time the bats returned to the ground, she felt lighter, a burden having lifted off her shoulders. She knew she would never be completely free of the guilt, but this felt like Chiyoko had forgiven her, and now maybe she could do so too, or at least learn to live with that burden. Mourning was now allowed to her, and tears ran down her cheeks.

She didn't wipe them off.

-:- 

She thanked the bat once she was back, feeling already that time had passed quickly here. The temperature was colder than it had been, and she shivered as a gust of wind blew across her face.

"Brr...Best get going, I think. Thanks for taking me back!"

"You're welcome. It's a shame you couldn't stay for the night. The lanterns are going to illuminate the caverns tonight to guide Chiyoko-chan's soul if she gets lost on her way. We are going to dance and sing and make love, and when the sun rises, we are going to sleep, and Chiyoko-chan will visit our dreams. And when we wake up, she will be in all of us and our journey will be hers too."

"Hai...I'd have liked that...but while I may not be there with you, because people would worry again about me, I will think of you this night. I will be with you in thought."

And then she was alone, and she missed her guys. She wanted to be held in a safe and loving embrace.

She walked back to her village, slowly but determinedly. She would not wait for them to come and get her. She would walk forward instead of being carried.

She did stumble several times, but she was at least sure she was on the right path. She was getting up once more when she felt she was not alone anymore. Cursing internally for various reasons, not the least of which being her embarrassment, she waited for her observer to act or speak first.

"And so here you are."

The words weren't exactly menacing, but they certainly didn't feel friendly either. Something in that tone was off, wrong, and it irked her. She stayed relaxed, but stood prepared in case her observer tried to harm her.

"My name is Konan. You may have heard of me from Hoshigaki-san."

_Oh hell. Fucking hell._

"You can relax, sensei. I was just passing by. This is actually a coincidence. I have no intention to fight you at this time. I did not come here with orders regarding you, so I shall you this only: I shall make a report about you when I go back. You should expect a visit from someone from Akatsuki in the near future. I'm telling you this because I respect what you have done here, but be warned: my colleagues may not be so respectful and could very destroy your village if you oppose us. Have a good day."

She heard a rustling noise, and knew with certain clarity that she was alone.

_What the fuck was that?!_ And then she thought with dread, _Shit, we're in deep trouble._

-:- 

She soaked in her bath silently, feeling more and at the same time less at ease than she had been in a while. Her cavern was a place of refuge, and her baths were notoriously a moment where she was off-limits. She could then be in as introspective a mood as she desired. And she really needed to be, this time. Konan had warned her: someone from Akatsuki would come soon, and she doubted it would be Pein. If it was who she thought it would be, lives could be lost and her whole village could be razed to the ground.

How to prevent that? How, indeed?

"Can I join you?"

_Damn it._

"Sure."

There was a splash; Itachi waded up to her. She loved him dearly, but now was not the time. Then she heard someone crouch at the edge of her carved bath.

"Heya, chibi-sensei. Have room for one more?"

_Kisame. Of course._

Why was it that the two people who knew her most were there to witness her when she most wanted to hide things from them?

She smiled. "Of course."

And she died inside.

She guiltily, oh so guiltily let their caresses make her forget the morrow and drowned in the present, feeling terrible for leaving them in the dark.

-:- 

"Did you take a beating or something?"

Sakura smiled at Tohru's aghast tone. Indeed, she could feel that her body was mottled with blue and black marks. It had been much too long since she had healed herself, she knew that. Her body must be a terrible sight to behold.

"Just heal me, please? You know how to multiply cells."

She knew without needing to see it that he must be frowning at her.

"Sensei..."

"Just do it. Integrally. And when you lack chakra, get someone to replace you," she ordered him sternly.

"Sensei? This could be dangerous...How long do you want us to do this for?"

"As long as you need to, until I look like I should. Get help from trusty people."

She heard a sigh, then she was taken in an embrace that surprised her. "W-What are you—"

"Sensei." Was he choking on tears? "Have you told Uchiha-san and Hoshigaki-san?"

"Don't you dare tell them. They think I am going to share medical secrets with you, and I intend for them to remain in the dark about what we're truly going to do. Got it?" she said with a threatening growl.

"That's going to be...painful." She could hear the wince in his voice.

"I know. I expect it to be. That's pretty much why I do it by small doses, usually. My body needs time to adjust between every séance, time that I don't have right now. I must do it now."

"Can I ask why you feel you must do this now in this rushed manner? If we mess up or your body can't take it..."

"Believe me, you're _much_ better off not knowing. Shall we get this show on the road?" 

-:- 

Sakura was shaken awake by Tohru, feeling like a hundred elephants had trampled her overnight.

"Fucking _hell_ that hurts...How do I look?"

"Not like a ten-year-old anymore. I'd say...closer to Uchiha Itachi-san's age? Anyway, there's a Hyuuga here who's very insistent on seeing you."

"Yeah, I know how they get. Alright, I'll go. Put a henge on me, will you? I don't want the guys to get suspicious just yet and I feel like crap."

He helped her get up and led her out of the room; she tried her best to appear unfazed even though she didn't know how long she had been unconscious and her joints felt stiff—she had gone through adolescence once, why must she feel like she did once more?—and prepared mentally to deal with a prissy ninja.

She was really not in the mood to deal with the Hyuuga and blankly told him that no, she would not heal him personally even if he was a Hyuuga, but that someone would take care of him. With possibly the worst timing ever, Itachi took that moment to come in.

"Uchiha-kun?!"

_Ousted._

"Hyuuga-san."

"So sensei isn't the only one who came back here."

"Hai. I accompanied her."

Was it just her or was the air getting colder by the minute?

"And you're coming back to Konoha with me. One of my teammates died on the way. I suppose you'll have to replace her. Hokage-sama gave strict orders that whoever happened upon you must bring you back. We'll leave tonight."

"What?" _Oh, Itachi-kun, must you sound so angry, so disbelieving?_

"To disobey would be tantamount to disobeying the Hokage's direct order. Unless that is what you intended?"

And yes, the Hyuuga had no love lost for the Uchiha and were still masters of pointed sarcasm. She wanted to smack her forehead with her palm in frustration, and she couldn't even see them!

She had to diffuse the situation.

"Itachi-kun, as you can see, I'm fine. Really. No need to mother-hen me anymore. Besides, I have a project going on with my apprentice, so I couldn't spend much time with you anyway. Go back to Konoha for now, and I'll visit whenever I have time, okay? Or you stop by on your way to a mission if you're in the area. Deal?"

Of course, things didn't stop there. Hyuuga and Uchiha didn't do things by half and definitely never agreed on anything. While they resolved their problem like good little ninja full of testosterone, she sighed and returned to her room with Tohru. Itachi would see her words were wise soon enough. 

-:- 

She felt like her body had been crushed and put back together by a toddler. That sort of feeling didn't make one particularly happy upon waking up to. As it just so happened, Kisame was the one who got the brunt of her anger.

It hurt to speak, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to think. She couldn't be blamed for being less than warm and cooperative.

"Kisame-kun, _love_, what the hell was so urgent?"

Sweet and fiery. And with the migraine to end all migraines.

"I kinda missed you. Y'know, it's really hard to get a hold of you these days. I almost stabbed a kunai in my gut just to see if you would come running or stay holed up all day again."

It was the lightness of his tone that made her anger fade away. She smiled grimly in apology.

"Sorry. I guess I neglected you for a while."

"And the Uchiha too. You barely made it to see him off and disappeared just as quickly. You do know that the sand brat is camped outside your room at all times, except when he's out pissing off Satsuki-chan."

"She did complain once or twice."

Kisame let out a gravelly laugh.

"Seriously, though, what are you doing in there? That super secret stuff makes me all kinds of curious."

She shook her head, wincing as the movement seemed to jar something inside her head. It didn't escape Kisame's notice.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Really. Just tired, you know?"

"You look in desperate need of a nap. Wanna use me for a pillow? I'm told I'm comfortable to lie on. But first, about that secret stuff of yours?"

"You're not gonna let that one slide, are ya?" she asked, amused by his casual persistence.

"Nope."

"Too bad. I guess I'll have to wait for that nap."

She smiled tiredly, patted him on the arm, and promptly passed out. When she woke up next, moments later, she felt even worse, and she only croaked to him to get her to Tohru. While he ran through the house, her head swam and she blabbed incoherent things with chuckles brought on by her pain.

She switched hands, was barely aware of it between the "must get back the sword" and the "not safe, not there" and then she was back in black.

She woke up after an eternity, feeling marginally better than before; Kisame was nowhere to be found.

-:- 

Omake

Satsuki eyed Gaara with interest. This was someone she had never seen before, she was quite sure of it. He was pretty cute, she allowed, but there was something dangerous behind his eyes.

And those eyes were observing her, unblinking in their intensity and unnerving her. She crossed her arms across her chest defensively and frowned.

"What?"

"You're not a ninja."

_Duh._ "Right."

"And you're not a medic."

"And your point is?" she said, eyebrow rising in question.

"What are you doing here?"

The inquisitive tone was a bit rude, and she felt herself bristle.

"I'm living here. Got a problem with that?"

"And if you're not a medic and a ninja, what's your use?"

Despite her not being a ninja, he never saw her slap coming. His cheek throbbed for a long time afterward.

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Not too dark, right? Well, I can't promise no darkness, 'cause then this fic wouldn't be the way it is, but are you all glad to see a new omake? I actually had it planned for a long time now. I'm not too unhappy about the way this chapter turned out.


	121. Get Back Up Again and Again

I specially dedicate this chapter to Refrigerator-Burn. It always makes me happy to hear from you, dear reviewer! Also, I'd like to encourage you to go to this site and sign the petition to stop all such sites as FF:

Link - petitions. whitehouse. gov/ petition/ stop - sopa - 2014 /q0Vkk0Zr

You have until March 19th. Be quick, people!

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Itachi corrected Sasuke's aim, gentle but firm in his teaching. His little brother had grown up in his absence; it was strange to see him looking older than he remembered him, but time in the summons' realm passed much more slowly than here.

"Don't throw your weight off-balance."

With a frown of determination, Sasuke observed Itachi demonstrate the proper way to stand and did his best to imitate him. The result was a marginally better-thrown senbon. The younger brother sighed in annoyance.

"I wish I had the Sharingan. Then I'd have no problem doing this."

"It's not wise to depend on any one technique. You put yourself at a disadvantage. Besides, even the best technique may have a weakness or a drawback. Never forget that it is your body doing the work. Repeat your movements until your body reacts automatically when under pressure or in danger. Then use your Sharingan. And you'll be the better ninja for it."

Sasuke pouted at the remonstrance but nodded his understanding.

Behind him, Itachi rubbed at his eyes. He hadn't used his Mangekyo as of late, but there was a steady pinprick of pain behind his eyes that was easy enough to ignore. He tended to ignore it, but he could feel it more acutely now that he didn't have anything much on his hands to distract him. It didn't bother him enough that he went to the hospital for it, but it was a distraction he could do without.

And one he didn't intend to make anyone worry about.

"One more try, then we have to go to the market."

"What?" Sasuke had completely forgotten the time.

"Tomatoes, leeks and tofu, remember?"

Sasuke's cheeks pinked, having also forgotten their mother had asked them to bring back some groceries.

"Oh. Right."

Itachi waited while Sasuke retrieved the weapons scattered over the training grounds, then the two brothers headed together for the market. They ignored their fangirls, the young girls squealing in glee at the sight of the two of them together, and stumbled on a pinkette as they rounded a corner.

Itachi righted himself immediately, sidestepping the girl only to crack his toes on a nearby stall. Sasuke, for his part, almost fell gracelessly while the girl excused herself repeatedly, flustered.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going, Atama-san was trying to bite my hand, and I was distracted...I'm sorry!"

She kept her hand firmly atop the severed head's mouth, ignoring the attempts at gnawing through her hand, and bowed deeply, blushing in embarassment.

Sasuke frowned unhappily but his brother's presence urged him not to recoil—he didn't want to disappoint him by not being gentlemanly and upholding the Uchiha family name.

Itachi, once he regained his dignity and stopped having to force himself not to twitch, cringe or otherwise cry out in pain, nearly stared a hole through the girl's head. Her resemblance to his Sakura was uncanny, to the point that they would look nearly identical if his girl had viridian eyes. For the first time, maybe, he wondered what colour her eyes were. He longed to peer into them, lose himself in her gaze and watch the outer world fade away.

Then someone was speaking to him, someone who did not have a voice so near his Sakura's.

"Uchiha Itachi-kun. What a pleasant surprise to run into you here with your...oh, so she isn't your pasty-colored haired friend."

"Pastel," he corrected almost absent-mindedly.

"Excuse me?"

"Pastel. I think the word you were looking for is pastel."

His interlocutor's pale eyes crinkled at the edge in annoyance, but the long-haired Hyuuga remained otherwise unruffled, or seemed so. The female was snobby, but only as much as could be, given she was in public and had a façade of politeness to hold up; there was much disdain veiled behind her small smile, but also interest. Despite their families' history, Itachi was a clan heir and that alone made him an object of interest.

"So it was. This meeting is truly fortuitous; there is something I wanted to discuss with you. Shall we head to the teashop to talk about it?"

Feeling two sets of eyes upon him, Itachi replied politely but firmly, "My apologies, Himiko-san, but I have errands to run and am awaited home soon for supper. Another time, perhaps?"

Her pale cheeks pinked in dissatisfaction at the courteous dismissal.

"Do you so prefer the company of pink-haired girls that you would dismiss me, one of the noble Hyuuga Clan? Does this one compare to the other one? Even though the medic pretends to be just as young? Is she so vain as to hide her real age just to land a younger guy? Really...tsk, tsk."

She shook her head in disdain while everyone else only stared at her.

"What do you mean?" asked Itachi after a moment of utter silence.

"That little phony, pretending to be so young to be seen as a genius too...she's very nearly an adult, by civilian standards, at least. My older cousin saw her in Myou before you went back together and told me. See if her reputation stays so pristine!"

Itachi grit his teeth, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he forcibly tried. Or to worsen the relations between their two clans. His mind was reeling in shock, but he managed to appear unmoved, this apparent apathy having been drilled into him years ago—for once he was thankful.

"The Uchiha Clan will make your life very difficult if you harm the reputation of the clan heir's future wife and, subsequently, the future Uchiha Matriarch," he replied, aloof but in a tone so cold it could freeze the flames of his Amaterasu. "Not to mention she, too, would probably find a way to make you regret your words. You will speak of this to nobody and make sure your cousin's mouth stays shut, too, or I will find a way to assign you on the next S-rank mission I go on, do I make myself clear?"

Having just passed her Chuunin exams, the Hyuuga paled considerably, realizing that this was no idle threat and that should she go on an S-rank mission, she would definitely not come back alive.

"I...I get it," she stuttered, having lost most of her poise and confidence in having the upper hand.

Then she shrieked in agony as pain flared in her hand—she managed to shake her hand free and, cradling it protectively to her chest, fled in direction of the hospital.

The two brothers turned to stare at Sakura as she bent down to retrieve Hidan's head.

"What?" she replied innocently at their prolonged staring. "It's _definitely_ not _my_ fault she stood so close to me and my hand happened to slip from Atama-san's mouth."

The corner of her mouth lifted in a crooked grin, and then she sauntered away with a whistle of happiness. "See you, Sasuke-kun, Itachi-san!"

"...Nice girl."

And then a reluctant grunt of acknowledgement.

"Hn."

-:- 

Sakura rolled over with a grunt; her head flopped back down on her pillow. Something felt loose in her head, disjointed. It was pounding, but gentle hands stopped her from moving or ripping her head off. What she recognized as medical chakra eased her migraine and much of her muscle pain, and then she could think more clearly.

"Are we...alright? Did something trample me recently?" she asked with a pasty mouth.

"Don't worry, sensei, we've done it. Your body was under immense strain but we managed to stabilize you when you collapsed and while you have to recover, it's done and over with now, all of it. No more."

Tension left her body at Tohru's words. Could she really be whole again? Could she really have her body back? At last, after those long years of waiting?

"Really?" she asked feebly in amazement. "Really?" She smiled brightly, then bit her lip to stifle her giggles of joy as she ran her hands over her body. Her sleeping yukata did little to hide her curves, and she herself felt it slide along her body as she slowly moved, as if in a trance. "How old do I look?"

"Well...Nineteen, perhaps? Ne, sensei, how do you plan to explain this new appearance of yours? Your appearance is well-known throughout the lands..."

"If things go the way I think they will, it won't matter..."

"Eh?"

"Nothing. Where are Kisame-kun and Gaara-san?" she asked, trying to get up only to have Tohru gently but firmly force her back down.

"Please stay calm, sensei. While Hoshigaki-san left recently, the...child is still here. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he enjoys riling Satsuki-san up."

"Left? What? Why? Where?"

Once more, Tohru had to press his hands to her shoulders to keep her still. Agitated as she was, Sakura strained against his firm hold.

"Sensei! Sensei! Stop! He's already gone! You were delirious, talking of swords and getting something back, and you were so insistent, repeating it again and again, that Hoshigaki-san left to get back his sword without waiting for you to wake up."

She stilled, stomach churning. Samehada...Yes, indeed, he had lost his sword... But how dangerous it would be to get it back! Kabuto would rise again, nearly unbeatable.

"Impossible. He can't have. He can't—"

This time, she managed to shake off her apprentice and take a few steps in direction of the door in her vehemence; she smacked straight into a hard chest and was taken into a warm embrace.

"My little girl! You've grown so much! Let's eat sekihan in celebration!"

Long hair tickled her face; that scent, that so comforting scent...She grabbed the back of his shirt, fingers digging into his shoulders compulsively.

"Jiji! Oh, jiji!"

Jiraiya, surprised, shared a look with Tohru over Sakura's shoulder. What had gotten his girl so upset? Why wasn't she happier that her body was back to normal, that she looked like an adult once more?

"Why don't you get some hot tea from the kitchen?" he suggested. Tohru looked uncertain, but with a reassuring nod from Jiraiya, he left the room, leaving the two alone. He hoped the Sannin could appease Sakura and convince her to rest.

Jiraiya gently led Sakura back to her bed and sat down on it, holding her in a safe embrace.

"Tell me what's wrong," he urged her. "Why are you so distressed? Shouldn't you be happy you're back to being an adult? Which, by the way, no one seems to be aware of..."

"Jiji! You have to stop Kisame-kun! If he retrieves Samehada, Kabuto's corpse will go on a rampage and kill him! He told me all about how hard it was to subdue Kabuto, and he's still going! I know he planned to take back Samehada, but he can't go alone! Please, jiji, stop him! Take Orochimaru's journals with you—I'm certain he mentioned that jutsu of his in them. Maybe then you can control Kabuto's corpse. _Please_, jiji!"

Readjusting his hold on her, Jiraiya frowned. He didn't mind being on the road so soon after arriving, but he would have enjoyed talking more with Sakura after so long an absence. She was nearly shivering in angst; how could he refuse her?

"Sakura-chan...Alright, I'll do it for you. I'll leave as soon as possible."

She sagged in relief. "Thank you...I'm sorry to shorten your visit..."

"No matter, my girl. I'll be back with your guy before you know it! Now tell me, where are those journals?"

"Take me downstairs, I'll open my warded bookcase for you."

-:- 

Tohru despaired internally. He had no idea how to get Sakura to relax and stay calm in order to heal faster. The best he had been able to come up with was making her stay put and give him orders—and now he was running around in the cave behind the waterfall, taking out this mixture and that and putting them together, describing the result and having to adjust it one way or another.

He had no idea what it was for, but since Jiraiya had left in a hurry, she had been unstoppable. He could no more force her to stay still than he could stop the sun from setting down each night.

"It's a dark yellow now, almost opaque. Is it close to what you're looking for?"

From atop her pile of furs, Sakura spoke up. "How does it smell? Be precise."

Tohru took a sniff and almost sneezed at the odor. It tickled his nose and made his eyes water, but was not overly foul. "A bit citrusy, with a musty overlay. What kind of poison are you having me concoct?"

"It's ready, then. Have Satsuki-chan slip this into the stew tonight. I'll give you some herbs to eat one hour beforehand. Give some to Satsuki-chan too. Make sure she eats them before we gather for dinner tonight."

Tohru looked up sharply at that. "Sensei?! Are you planning to poison someone?!"

She waved his concern away. "This is just a concoction that will put someone in a deep sleep, a dreamless sleep much like a coma. When you give the herbs and the mixture to Satsuki-chan, explain it to her, but be careful not to be overheard. Those herbs will make you immune to the mixture's effects. When Gaara-san is asleep, we'll put him in a crate. That crate will be put among others on the morning convoy to Konoha. Put in gifts for the Hokage and the Uchiha as thanks for their help lately. No one will suspect anything if you go along with Satsuki-chan as my ambassador. On the way, make sure to keep Gaara-san sedated and only open the crate in the Uchiha compound. Explain to him that for his protection, I sent him there. Itachi-kun should have figured things out by then and will help protect him."

Mind reeling, Tohru nodded numbly. "Sensei...What are you planning?" What are you trying to prevent secretly, bearing everything on your own?

"Don't concern yourself, my dear apprentice. Things will be resolved by the time you get back from Konoha. Do you think you'll be able to work on my fingers a bit before you go?"

"Certainly! I'm sorry we didn't work on them when healing your body, but they weren't our priority then and it would have been counterproductive to work on them too, with your body changing so rapidly."

"Hai...I understand. I don't like it much, and the treatments leave my fingers very sensitive. New limbs are _such_ a pain!"

Shaking his head, Tohru left the vial on the crude stone table and approached the female. "Come, sensei, let's leave this cave and return to the house. The light will be better there for me to work with."

"Let's do that. Ne, carry me?" she asked cutely, arms outstretched and head cocked to the side with a small pout.

He wasn't fooled; she was quite clearly hiding a smile. He indulged her anyway.

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Phew! And now, we can finally get to a more exciting part! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Sekihan : rice mixed with red beans, served in celebration 


	122. Unexpected Meetings

Dear readers, I'm alive! New job, crazy hours (don't ever work more than twelve hours in a row, it can seriously drain you for the following days) and family trouble kept me from writing this as quickly as I'd hoped, but I eventually managed to finish this. I'm really quite happy with it, despite how hard it was to write certain parts of it. Enjoy!

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"Anata?"

Blinking, Fugaku looked up from his paperwork. In the entrance of his study, his wife smiled softly at him.

"Someone's here to see you. Shall I show him in?"

Fugaku blinked, trying to remember if he had an appointment scheduled that day and coming up short. Was it a surprise visit?

"The clan elders?" he asked, steeling himself for her answer.

Mikoto shook her head, hiding a smile as he nearly sagged in relief; the elders were sure able to drain one's energy, vitality and motivation in the span of a few minutes.

"It isn't. Rather, it is a messenger from Myou."

His eyebrows joined his hairline at that.

"The medical village? How peculiar...Make him enter."

By the time she returned with the messenger, Fugaku looked confident and perfectly poised as always he was in the company of strangers—even his family, at times.

He recognized the young man who entered for having heard of him from his eldest son, and nodded politely to him as the other man sat down. The door closed, his dear Mikoto softly saying that she would bring back tea and snacks in a moment.

Tohru introduced himself, looking slightly ill at ease, which didn't fail to rouse Fugaku's interest. Looking at the blond with somber eyes, he enunciated, "What did you wish to see me for?"

Tohru sighed with a self-deprecating smile. "This is a bit of a long story...Actually, I was sent here with a...a strange message. I...think it might be best if I showed you. I came bearing gifts; they're in the entrance. Shall we go there?"

Curiosity more than pity at the clearly uneasy blond made Fugaku agree wordlessly and gesture for Tohru to lead the way. As it so happened, there was a big pile of presents in the entrance of his home, which Tohru told him were thanks for all the Uchiha Clan's help. Among the various crates filled with bolts of silk, scrolls, pottery, medicinal herbs and vials filled with poisons or antidotes, there was one crate that was different from the others. Tohru opened it carefully with a crowbar and rummaged through the bolts of silk, gingerly setting them down on the ground next to him.

And then the crate's real treasure was revealed.

"What in the world?" uttered Fugaku, flabbergasted.

He stepped forward and fingered the seal-laced wood on the inside of the crate, pensively peering into it. The pillows that padded it made for a relatively comfortable bed for the sleeping boy inside.

"Well...May I present Sabaku no Gaara, who for now is asleep and _really_ should remain so until I finish explaining why I've brought him here...Exploding temper and all that..."

Fugaku fought to remain aloof and detached while he closed the crate once again. "Speak up. What has my daughter-in-law gotten embroiled in?"

"I have no idea. Nobody does. She just sent me here with Gaara-san, told me to keep him hidden until we came here and to tell you in person to keep him hidden if at all possible," said Tohru as he followed the pensive but still listening Fugaku back to his study. "She seemed to think it very important that no one knew he was here."

"Strange...Surely the Kazekage had heard he was in Myou so it can't be to hide from him...Continue."

"I admit there's not much else to say...She told me not to come back for a month. I've no idea what she intends to do in that time. She said it's imperative Gaara-san kept hiding here—that, and Itachi-san should not return to Myou for a while, either."

"That is interesting...I'm positive they didn't fight...Maybe Gaara-san will be able to shed some light on this. Wait here. I'm taking no chances with the boy."

-:- 

"We're going to have a visitor soon..."

Two males turned in her direction. She smiled to them, chuckling inwardly at their twin looks of annoyance.

"And it appears he's arrived."

She got up to answer the knock at the door while her husband sternly told their son to go to bed. She didn't ask their visitor to explain the motive of his visit, simply beckoned him to follow her.

He did so with a grateful nod. "I need your husband's help, right now and with no questions."

They shared a meaningful glance.

"Alright."

She heard her husband exit the living room and smiled apologetically. And then he muttered, "Mendoukusei."

-:- 

"Something real bad is going to happen. You saw the signs; she saw it coming long before you suspected anything. And she acted."

Trapped by a shadow, unable to move, Gaara could only listen in fury as a cool man detachedly explained the situation. Sakura had put him to sleep once before, but he had woken up in familiar territory. This time, she had gone much further than that, deciding on her own that he would be sent to a whole different village, one that wasn't quite on friendly terms with his father's one.

"Don't be angry at her. If she sent you away in this manner, there must have been a good reason. After all, you know her character. Can you remain calm?"

Gaara glared, agitated but willing to give them a chance to explain to him just why he shouldn't kill them for holding him immobile and, apparently, planning to keep him confined in the house he was in.

"Maybe you should get your son in here," suggested the one with the ponytail.

With a nod, the other disappeared. Gaara glared at the remaining man.

"Mendoukusei...I don't want to keep you immobile either, this is so annoying...I'd rather go back home," he said, sitting down with a sigh.

"Release me."

"Can't do that. Itachi-san will be here in a moment and then everything will be explained. I admit I'm curious too. But mostly annoyed."

Gaara was, too, and quietly simmering. His sand swirled in his gourd in reaction to his emotions—wait, something was not normal...

His eyes widened in surprise, but his lazy captor was looking at the door, sighing in annoyance and wishing Fugaku would come back soon with Itachi.

The door opened and in came the two Uchiha, the younger one faltering almost imperceptibly upon entering.

"This...What is the meaning of this? Did you need to restrain him?"

"It was safer this way. He would have caused a stir, and we need his presence to stay a secret."

"Mendoukusei..."

"Where is she?"

At Gaara's demand, the three black-haired males stopped talking and turned to him.

"Sakura-sensei is still back in Myou," explained Fugaku. "She sent her apologies for the way she handled the situation. Her apprentice told me she seemed in a rush, for some reason. He didn't know why she sent you here, nor why she asked us to keep you safe without anyone knowing."

Gaara glared. "I'll kill her."

Itachi sighed, crouched next to Gaara and shook his head.

"You wouldn't. You know well she did only what she thought best for you. We may not know what prompted her to act this way, but it must have been something very important and dire if she felt she could not tell anyone and acted in such a rush."

Gaara clenched his jaw shut, not refuting Itachi's statement but refusing to agree with it either.

"Gaara-san," said Itachi, "if you do remain here, you'll be treated well, I swear on my honor as an Uchiha. And if you remain hidden, I'll make sure I find out why she sent you here, to be secreted away."

"Regardless of your answer, we can keep you immobile and silent indefinitely, Gaara-san, do be aware of that," said Fugaku sternly.

"Yeah, about that...not really. I'd really like to go home sometime before this day turns into the next," drawled Shikaku unhappily. "Mendoukusei..."

As unhelpful as his comment was, it did give Gaara an idea. Cooperating for a while wouldn't hurt much in the long run, especially if Itachi was true to his word, as he had always proved to be.

"Release me. As you wish, I'll stay quiet. For a time. I want answers, Itachi-san. Answers you _will_ provide me or I'll wreak havoc on this place."

Itachi was suspicious but agreed in relief. The adults were skeptical too, but the room they were in, a prized secret of the Uchiha Clan, was not as innocent as it seemed. Used most often in the past for meetings with other Clan Heads or important officials, it was lined with a web of seals that absorbed chakra, repelled destructive jutsu and were designed to make one's mind peaceful—its work was subtle, influencing one rather than forcing emotions upon one, and more difficult to perceive and counter. Furthermore, despite its appearance, the room was underground, fully soundproof—anything happening within those walls would always remain secret if no one leaked anything once outside.

Thinking back on it, Fugaku remembered that reunions had happened here in a recent past, a man promising his clan power and respect...until his wife had cleanly put a stop to the clan elders' views on this matter. Who knew what that man was concocting now, and with whom...

-:- 

Toranosuke entered the kitchen, stomach growling. His eyes lit up upon seeing Satoshi chopping carrots, engrossed in his menial work and completely oblivious to the world outside his head. Grinning, he tiptoed up to the older man and leaned down to blow on his ear. Surprised, the graying man jerked, knife slipping to lightly bite into his index finger.

Hissing in pain, Satoshi stuck his injured finger into his mouth and glared at his lover.

"I love you, but please don't ever do that again if you want a safe bed to sleep in," he uttered calmly.

Toranosuke put his arm around Satoshi's shoulders, lightly saying, "Come now, I'll heal this for you in a jiffy. Don't be angry, hm?"

Satoshi lightly punched the taller man on the arm but let him handle his hand, shivering as Toranosuke first ran a finger down his sensitive palm.

"Don't do that," he berated his lover, "we don't have time for this. Heal me, then wake up ojou-sama."

"Well, then, we have all the time in the world. She's out on one of her solitary walks," said Toranosuke, dragging the other man into his embrace.

"Wait, what?"

Disentangling himself, Satoshi left the room at a brisk pace, leaving behind a pouting man.

"Doesn't she ever rest? Why does she never warn me..."

-:- 

The forest was waking up, it seemed. Birds chirped, animals ran in the underbrush, fish swam in glitters of silver in the rivers...and a female jogged upriver, feet treading lightly the surface of the water as she did so.

_Gotta get my cardio back to normal...  
_  
Breaths puffed out of her regularly as she slowly picked up speed, alert but focused on her body's responses.

_So far so good. And I'm far enough..._

Lips twitching, she headed for the shore. She was very tired, but this was no time to rest, especially now that her last finger had been regrown. It was tender still, and she didn't know whether or not it would react quite like her original fingers yet, as she didn't have time to muscle it. Such a simple, mundane thing that could be her downfall if she didn't take it into account.

And now that she was far enough from Myou, she would smash a few boulders to test her body.

"Hello, Sakura-sensei."

Her foot slipped, nearly sending her into the water. She righted herself at once, cursing inwardly at having been caught unawares. Tension coiled in her stomach, her heart beat faster, sending blood running through her veins in anticipation of a fight.

"I believe you expect my appearance before you. My name is Uchiha Madara."

For a beat, a moment of eternity, wind swished past her as the both of them remained silent. Then, crazily, she burst into shocked and disbelieving laughter. Her crazy laughs echoed for a long while in the forest, unimpeded by any other sounds as the forest grew silent.

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My apologies for the delay and the lack of real action in this chapter. There should be some in the next one, though!


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